Talk:Battle of Jenin/Archive 4

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
← Archive 3 |
Archive 4
| Archive 5 →

Contents

Into and Image Caption Changes

I have had my changes to this article persistently reverted, and the best explanation I have received is that the current version has bee previously explained. Something more categorical than that is needed. What is the excuse for the reversion of the following edits I have made.

  • Change in the order of the sentences in the into, prioritizing an outline of the battle, as is customary, ahead of the Israeli reasoning for the assault.
  • Removal of the assertion that it was "previously referred to as the Jenin Massacre", which is plainly inaccurate, as many still regard it as a massacre.
  • Reversion of my changing of the image caption. The current wording is POV.

There are many other problems with this extremely POV article, which others have raised and are raising. The resolution of the discussion on Eleland's proposed paragraph replacement, a significant and timely improvement to the current version, is also, I think, relevant to my concerns. But I'd personally like to have these minor matters resolved first before considering the rest of the article.Nwe 17:10, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

The order is significant and properly mirrors that of the rest of the article. I agree with point two, the wording needs to be changed to reflect that this is still called the Jenin Massacre by those who believe it to have been one or have not had the opportunity to peruse the evidence refuting the claims. Eleland's proposal needs a lot of work, imho. Kyaa the Catlord 17:17, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
Update: I've made some changes to the revision by Eleland which causes it to more accurately reflect her sources. Please review it. The original is still available in the history and I hope he/she does not mind that I was BOLD and directly editted the revision rather than duplicating the block of text.) Kyaa the Catlord 17:31, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

note: all these issues have been raised already on the talk so it would be great if editors could try to focus each topic of discussion on it's own subsection rather than make this talk page more confusing to follow than it already is. p.s. i agree with kyaa. JaakobouChalk Talk 17:27, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

As far as point two, I've several times asked for sourcing showing that it is still referred to as a massacre by mainstream sources. TewfikTalk 19:32, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Serious NPOV issues. The next steps are an RfC and/or mediation

Tewfik, I appreciate very much your mildness of tone on the talk page; it goes a long way towards maintaining an atmosphere of good faith. That said, I find your latest edits extremely distressing from the point of view of basic policy and common sense. Can you explain, in as much detail as possible, why you keep adding an ADL statement to a section devoted to "Post-fighting investigations"? The ADL is an advocacy group (a lobby). They do not carry out "investigations" of any kind. They make pro-Israel statements on a daily basis, in response to the daily news. Why are they in this section? You keep saying "we can afford the space," but space is a red herring. The point is it's misleading to add lay commentary to a section on investigations. This has puzzled me for several days; I'll concede that my puzzlement has leaped into the territory of outrage when I now see you deleting from that very section the results of a three-week investigation (and accompanying 52-page report) from one of the world's major international human rights organizations, Human Rights Watch. On grounds that it violates WP:UNDUE. And that Human Rights Watch findings are "punditry" (unless they're exonerating Israel of massacres, in which case they're definitive). Is this really your position? That in a section on "post-fighting investigations," it is a violation of undue weight to present the findings of a 3-week investigation by one of the two most prominent human-rights organizations in the world, but it's appropriate to include a windy evaluative judgment by a lobby organization that's never set foot in Jenin? Tewfik, it boggles. I ask you to reconsider. There are other problems with what you're edit-warring over, but frankly this is egregious and must be dealt with first. To be necessarily blunt, soothing tones on the talk page are not sufficient to maintain an atmosphere of good faith in the face of edits like these.--G-Dett 23:37, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I notice that you've also deleted part of the sentence, "Palestinian sources, the European Union, and major international human rights organizations alleged that the camp and its dwellings were attacked indiscriminately by Israel with heavy military equipment," etc., on the erroneous grounds that it was supported by "just the EU report annex & a qualified mention by one NGO". As I indicated in the summary of the very edit you reverted, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the European Union described the Israeli attack on the camp as "indiscriminate." This is what I summarized as "Palestinian sources, the European Union, and major international human rights organizations." That was accurate; please stop deleting it and substituting something misleading and tendentious.--G-Dett 00:35, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
I'm glad that you appreciate the tone, but as I find that some of the most recent comments on this page are peppered with colourful speculations of intent and hostile language, I do hope that the editors here will try to emulate said tone a bit more in the future.
As far as the content, I believe that almost every change I made was accompanied by a reasoning on this Talk page, many of them since the last week, and most of which have not been acknowledged, much less responded to. That said, since you've stated your objections here, I'll likewise address them, but want the record to reflect that at least for most of the points, this is not the first time:
  1. I've mentioned several times that the ADL statement is a direct reply to the previous paragraphs, all of which deal with the evolution of "allegations of a massacre". If there are indeed several such statements of equal notability, then perhaps a separate section would be in order, but since I made the request days ago, no such suggestions have been made.
  2. Yes, extensive discussion of the HRW report, and repetition of their allegations of war crimes, are inappropriate in a section dealing with the evolution of "allegations of a massacre". That said, some of the details selected wouldn't belong in the summary in any event.
  3. You say that Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the European Union use indiscriminate, yet all I could find when looking in the cited reports was the EU annex to the UN report, and qualified usage in HRW. As I could be mistaken, I would appreciate if you could provide links and quotes to the mentions that I am missing.
Again, I've explained these things before, and so I'm not sure how you've arrived at some of your hypotheses regarding my intent, but note how I've managed to not make such assumptions of nefarious intentions (or of any intentions) on your part. Please reciprocate. TewfikTalk 20:26, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, where is my hypothesis about your intent? I can neither remember nor find on the page any such hypothesis. Nor can I make out the significance of the fact that you haven't assumed "nefarious intent" on my part. I'm not edit-warring to keep in place a version of the article that a) opens with a long paragraph devoted to the Palestinians' version of the context for the battle is, with no balancing Israeli version; b) gives heightened emphasis to the war crimes charges that have been sustained and validated, while downplaying those that were discredited; c) quotes MPAC, CAIR, or the ADC at length in the "post-fighting investigations" section; and c) is larded with metaphorical atmospherics prejudicial to the Israelis, such as describing boobytraps as carrying an explosive charge "one-twentieth that of the bombs Israeli jets drop on residential areas in the Gaza strip." If I were, then the request for "reciprocation" would have a rudimentary basis. But I'm not, and it doesn't.--G-Dett 22:01, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
My apologies. The gist of this was directed at comments emanating from Eleland, which I kept misattributing to you (yes, even after I made note of it). That said, comments like "soothing tones on the talk page are not sufficient to maintain an atmosphere of good faith in the face of edits like these" or assertions that I am larding the text (aggrandising, embellishing, padding) are still not helpful. I would like reciprocation of myself not insinuating that you are trying to downplay anything. TewfikTalk 23:30, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

comment - i can't speak for tewfik, but i will say that human rights watch is just as much an advocacy group as the ADL - one protects civilians, and the other protects against defamation - and this case included both civilians and defamation. JaakobouChalk Talk 10:55, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Human Rights Watch is not an advocacy group and they are not comparable in any way, shape, or form to the ADL. Nor does an ADL press release commenting on media coverage constitute a "post-fighting investigation"; nor is said press release in any way, shape, or form comparable to a three-week on-site investigation by one of the two most renowned human rights organizations in the world. If Tewfik shares your confusion on these points then that may be the source of the problem here.--G-Dett 12:39, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
considering how both run their "investigations", i stand by my statement. these "on site" interviews with the citizens from the west bank capital of "martyrs" (a.k.a. suicide bombers), which btw, rumors say were told what to say by radio transmissions, is as much of an investigation as a public reading of hannan ashrawi quotes. JaakobouChalk Talk 13:34, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
Taken from the lead of "Human Rights Watch is a United States-based international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Its headquarters is in New York City." Um, advocacy != advocacy? I'm confused. Kyaa the Catlord 13:39, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
Are you really confused about this? Human Rights organizations advocate for human rights. They do not advocate on behalf of countries. They invariably infuriate whatever state or entity (yes, entity: they published a lengthy report on Hezbollah's human-rights violations, for example) comes under their scrutiny. The ADL, on the other hand, advocates on behalf of Israel. In every situation. Human rights organizations carry out extensive on-site investigations, and publish their findings in detailed reports. Meanwhile ADL staffers surf the internet and write three-paragraph press releases to which Abe Foxman's signature stamp is added. It is astonishing to me that you don't understand the difference. And it's unsettling to me as well, because when these same human rights organizations conclude that Israel carried out no massacre, you see that as not only significant but definitive. It's not unusual for state officials, political figures, propagandists, media pundits, and even Wikipedians to take exactly this sort of a la carte approach to the findings of major human rights organizations. Indeed this ubiquitous, all-too-familiar a-la-cartism is strong evidence for – and a steady reminder of – the very non-partisanship of these major human-rights organizations.--G-Dett 14:25, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
i believe i explained my position quite well, no need to repeat ourselves in this already messy talk page. still to clarify, and repeat myself, HRW advocates for people regardless of what they do, ADL advocates against defamation that is beyond what israel does.JaakobouChalk Talk 14:42, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
These are very elementary distinctions, and recognizing them is absolutely essential for any serious editor of this article. This page is "messy" because of the absurdities that have been tirelessly piped into it. Elementary distinctions – such as that between the findings of major human rights organizations, on the one hand, and press releases from lobby groups on the other – have a way of dispelling the fog of sophistry that has blocked serious progress on this article. I'll repeat them as often as necessary, even more so as we move into RfC and comprehensive mediation mode.--G-Dett 14:52, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
your statement is incorrect, esp. in this case where HRW simply reported what they heard the residents of Jenin tell them (later toned down a notch when it became clear the statements were bogus) and this is more of an advocacy than ADL even, since (best i'm aware) ADL are not alleging anything that did not occur. regardless, i'm willing to hear some 3rd party opinions about this issue about this "very elementary distinction". JaakobouChalk Talk 15:39, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
My statement is not incorrect, nor does your post even attempt to substantiate that assertion. If you are ready to dismiss the authority of major international human rights organizations as "punditry," then the first thing we'll do is rewrite the article so that it doesn't present the massacre allegations as having been refuted. If Human Rights Watch is just an "advocacy group," then we'll just quote their "opinion" that a massacre didn't occur alongside the opinions of others that it did occur, and leave it open as to what happened.
You need to understand, Jaakabou, that these sophistries won't fly with me. I will explode them every time, and every time this happens your credibility takes a hit.--G-Dett 15:51, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
i think you need to take a step back and read your comment again. i do not wish to engage in what could be considered as a fight for the bigger ego. JaakobouChalk Talk 16:21, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
Not about egos, Jaakabou. It's about the level at which you're pitching your discussion. It needs to be significantly raised, if you want to be taken seriously on this page.--G-Dett 16:32, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
HRW is a long-standing, experienced, and respected organization. While they do start with testimonies of witnesses, they do not finish there; they extensively cross-check for inconsistencies, look for physical evidence, look for reports from "the other side" that might confirm or shed some light on the allegation, etc. Their credibility depends on it. I would urge you to look into criticisms of HRW; a good place to start would be Criticisms of Human Rights Watch. Invariably, these criticisms focus on perceived selection bias, or bias in the rhetorical emphasis placed on some aspect of a report. For instance, here's what your friends at the ADL had to say about the Jenin report:
Both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch charged Israel with violations of international law and war crimes. Neither discussed the international law violations involved in arming a refugee camp, or demanded the United Nations be held in any way accountable for its lack of oversight in the camp. While Human Rights Watch acknowledged in a May 3 report that there was no evidence of a massacre and that Palestinian gunmen had contributed to endangering Palestinian civilians, they continued to emphasize that there was prima facie evidence Israel committed war crimes.
Note that not a single factual objection is made; the criticisms all relate to emphasis and perceived blind spots (including nonsensical and bizzare ones, such as demanding that the United Nations exercise "oversight" over a camp which they do not administer and in which they have no police or security forces of any kind, but that's another story). HRW just doesn't run with an allegation unless they've checked it out and believe there is something to it. Maybe you heard different on Arutz Sheva or wherever, but that doesn't make it true. Eleland 16:28, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
I don't think anyone is questioning the inclusion of information from the HRW. We're questioning the removal of data from the ADL, which albeit partisan, is a long-standing and respectable organization. (Albeit sometimes seen as partisan and extremist, but so is the HRW and Amnesty International. Its hard to take a stand for ANYTHING without being accused of being insert colorful phrase.) Kyaa the Catlord 16:38, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
Actually, Tewfik has indeed "questioned the inclusion of information from the HRW"; he deleted it here on grounds that it was "punditry," and that for us to include HRW's reference to "the strong evidence suggesting that some were willfully killed" was a violation of WP:UNDUE. And there is no "data from the ADL" being removed; as has been explained countless times, there is a paragraph of lay opinion from an ADL press release that is being removed from a section on "post-fighting investigations," on the good solid grounds that the ADL doesn't and didn't carry out any investigation. Again, as I've said countless times, if you want to create a section for lay commentary and put the ADL statement there, by all means do so, and we can add other opinions to balance it out. Now please, please stop with the strawmen arguments. They're piling up and creating a fire hazard.--G-Dett 18:20, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

A suggestion

I have a suggestion to combat the ridiculous amount of fighting and edit-warring over this article:

  1. Find an editor who (a) is knowledgeable about Middle East issues (b) has no history of pro-Israeli or pro-Palestinian editing, and most importantly (c) has not edited this article before (or at most for spelling or grammar). Any suggested editor can be vetoed by one of the protagonists if they deem the choice to be non-neutral.
  2. Ask that editor to rewrite it from the start.
  3. Accept the neutral version and then spend your wikitime on more worthwhile activities such as the hundreds of kibbutzim/moshavim/MKs/other things that are lacking an article.

This has worked in the past (my rewrite of Kach and Kahane Chai stopped a near-month long slow-motion edit war) and if all editors can control themselves, I don't see why it shouldn't work here. Thoughts? Number 57 14:01, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I walked into this article like a week ago and ran into flame-war-fest. My contribs are mainly centered in anime, not in palestine and crap. I hope whoever gets suggested has some asbestos underpants. Kyaa the Catlord 14:21, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
i'd like to note that User:THF gave a few 3rd party comments also if you scroll up. as for the suggestion body, i find it odd that a possibly pro-palestine editor (basing this statement on our past interactions) claims neutrality and talks about his edit on a group often used to promote anti-isral sentiments.
to the suggestion itself, i'd prefer a 3rd side commentary who could perhaps review each side's claims to each dispute, rather than a full rewrite to a really long article, which i firstly find unnecessary and secondly believe will lead to a step backwards in the article's consensus status rather than a step forward. JaakobouChalk Talk 14:39, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

off topic babble by Jaakobou and Number57

i'd like to note that User:THF gave a few 3rd party comments also if you scroll up. as for the suggestion body, i find it odd that a possibly pro-palestine editor (basing this statement on our past interactions) claims neutrality and talks about his edit on a group often used to promote anti-isral sentiments. to the suggestion itself, i'd prefer a 3rd side commentary who could perhaps review each side's claims to each dispute, rather than a full rewrite to a really long article, which i firstly find unnecessary and secondly believe will lead to a step backwards in the article's consensus status rather than a step forward. JaakobouChalk Talk 14:39, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

"pro-Palestine" editor? I am a neutral. Whilst you may not think this as your and my opinions on issues are very far apart, I am very much a Zionist, but I am not one that is willing to cover up bad behaviour by the Israeli establishment when it happens. Would you care to point out any "anti-israel" bits which I inserted into the Kach and Kahane Chai article to justify your accusations of POV? Number 57 14:49, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
my opinion regarding you (that you might not be as neutral as you state) is based on the arguments around the map of israel, when you supported having the change "occupied" added to the original UN map whose original did not include the word - if my statement here is wrong, i'll apologize but this is what i remember. and also based on your "NPOV" statement that Ariel is not in Israel. i have no position to your claim of being 'very much a Zionist' (which can be interpreted in so many ways these days), and if you read my words carefully you'll notice i did not say you were anti-israel but said you were 'possibly pro-palestine'. i add that i have not read the Kach article or your changes on it, but i also note to you that most people who are anti-israel love to mention them as proof to their bogus zionism=racism narrative. JaakobouChalk Talk 15:19, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
Ariel is obviously not in Israel, or it would not be called an Israeli settlement. If you have evidence that Israel has annexed that part of the West Bank I may be open to compromise. As for saying that the WB and Gaza are occupied territories, that is not POV, it is NPOV. POV is saying that they are part of Israel or part of the State of Palestine. NPOV is the middle view (and the international law version) that they are occupied. Even some Israeli government websites call them occupied territories! Number 57 15:25, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
i'm fairly sure you can find the word "occupied" in ALL (not some) of the arab knesset parties if you look for it. JaakobouChalk Talk 15:42, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
I'm not talking about Arab parties in the Knesset. The Knesset website profile of Ezer Weizman describes how he was "in confrontation with Arik Sharon, the Agriculture Minister, regarding settlements in the occupied territories". Number 57 15:49, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
are we really turning this page into a forum about how certain terminologies can mean different things to different people? do i really need to remind you how the knesset website described esterina tarticman's biography and the public outrage that followed? JaakobouChalk Talk 16:18, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
You are the one that started this discussion by accusing me of POV. Before then I was making a suggestion to stop the messy argument that this article is causing. I didn't see how my background is relevant to the suggestion, as I was not putting forward myself for the job, but I am not going to stand by and let accusations go unanswered. Feel free to delete our whole conversation (including your accusation that I am "possibly pro-palestine") so that we can go back to the original suggestion. Number 57 16:24, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Blind reverts

Please try to take some care when you revert the article. I've asked NICELY repeatedly for people not to break the references in the lead since it impacts the rest of the article. Kyaa the Catlord 16:47, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I totally agree and find this mass edit to be unhelpful in the least. JaakobouChalk Talk 17:08, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

The version which was reverted away was monstrously NPOV.

  • Palestinian sources raised allegations of massacre, initially reported in the international media and repeated by several human rights groups.

"Repeated" implies credulous echoing, and "initially" is flat-out-false. Human rights groups waited until they had access to the camp and then conducted thorough investigations. They did not "initially" "repeat". And this is unsourced to boot. Note than an alternative version which was meticulously sourced was reverted out of hand.

  • They also maintained that the camp and its dwellings were attacked indiscriminately by Israel with heavy military equipment, combat helicopters, rockets and missiles,

"Maintained" is a loaded word which implies implausibility of the "maintained" claim. Furthermore this implies that the attack itself, rather than the single word "indiscriminately" was somehow only a "maintaining" by "Palestinian sources". For the dozenth time, why are we reporting a known fact as an "allegation"?? The camp was attacked, heavily, with all of the equipment listed. I previously provided sources including senior IDF officers to show this. The only question is whether it was "indiscriminate", which was not an allegation of mere "Palestinian sources" but of EU consuls-general, journalists, and Amnesty International - indeed, virtually every non-IDF observer who was in a position to know. Again, the sources are found in the alternative version I proposed above, which was reverted summarily.

CAMERA is not a reliable source; I could not find the transcript listed at the CNN site. Furthermore, the fact that a single Palestinian spokesman said that "[Sharon] will not repeat what he has done in Sabra and Shatila" is hardly the kind of "comparison" implied here (ie, scale and character).

  • The massacre allegations were subsequently rejected by the outside observers

The allegations were rejected by headline and editorial writers thousands of miles away. The observers on the scene found no evidence of a systematic massacre but did not and could not say whether the atrocities they did document constituted a massacre, as that term has no definition in international law.

  • who maintained the position that human rights violations had taken place by both sides.

False balance. The HRW and Amnesty investigations overwhelmingly concentrated on Israeli violations; they found that IDF actions could constitute "grave breaches" of the Geneva conventions "which constitute war crimes", but made no such finding on Palestinian actions.

  • The Palestinian death toll was estimated at 52 (including 22 civilians), while 23 Israeli soldiers were killed.

This 52 number has been plucked out of the air. It is the specific number of bodies collected at Jenin hospital in May. Multiple sources, including the IDF's think tank at Tel Aviv University and Amnesty International, say 56.

It's too bad that sources further down the article are being broken. It's much worse that this travesty of a lede section is being pushed over all objections. Eleland 18:18, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I addressed most of these issues, mistakenly attributing the corrections to G-Dett. TewfikTalk 20:28, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
My "mass revert" went back to CJCurrie's version from yesterday; I am not aware that that version had any broken references, but I apologize if it did.
I am willing and eager to bring this conversation around to a serious discussion and pursuit of consensus. I have only a few "red lines" here, and they are very modest, and reflect only a baseline conservative application of core policy to the shape of this article. They are as follows:
  1. An article on the battle of Jenin will not begin with a full paragraph devoted solely to the official Israeli explanation for why they lay siege to it. We can either a) present the two competing accounts of the "context" for the battle; or b) relegate such contentious material to the "background" section where it probably belongs.
  2. The article will not gerrymander its subject matter, either in the lead or in the body of the article, in order to put great emphasis on allegations of massacre that were subsequently refuted, and to bury the allegations of war crimes and "indiscriminate" use of force, that were subsequently validated.
  3. Corollary to #2: the article will not take an a la carte approach to the findings of major human rights organizations, treating them as definitive when they go one way, and mere "punditry" when they go the other way.
  4. The article will not be larded with POV-pushing atmospheric details, such as how a 113-kg explosive charge is "ten times larger than a typical suicide bomber's charge," even if such atmospherics are sourced. We cite our sources for facts; we don't selectively assimilate their rhetoric.
  5. The article will not conflate the reports of human-rights organizations following on-site investigations with lay commentary or lobbyists' punditry, and it will not mispresent an ADL press release as a "post-fighting investigation."
These are my red lines; anything crossing them will be reverted. I trust they derive self-evidently from the modest application of core policy. I look forward to serious and good-faith collaboration.--G-Dett 18:47, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
(Edit conflict) I've addressed your earlier points above, but for clarity, I'll respond here to the others:
  1. That the Israelis launched their operation in response to suicide bombings does not seem to be controversial assertion based on teh sources that I've reviewed in the course of editing here, but for the sake of argument, what exactly is the alterantove rationale which you propose presenting alongside it?
  2. While there was a recent edit that moved the massacre bit to the paragraph's first line, I moved it back promptly. Both a specific allegation of war crimes, and the allegation of "indiscriminate attacks" from which it partially stems are included prominently in the lead (noting the ongoing dispute on how to characterise the latter). I feel that including both statements is a bit much, but I'll leave that alone if it is the only problem.
  3. The continuing assertion that there is an a la carte approach is not true in my mind, but I'd much rather discuss specific cases rather than such vague statements.
  4. I've stated a rationale for inclusion of the "suicide bomber" phrasing several times, but it has never been replied to, or acknowledged by yourself thus far. In brief "the bombs were both manufactured by the same people who made suicide bombs, and as the latter is a familiar phenomenon, it is an ideal means of comparison" - there is also discussion in this section.
  5. I dealt with this in your above comments.
I again remind everyone to please abide by WP:CIV and WP:AGF; descriptions like "lardy" would be great in an Opinion column, but are not conducive to dispassionate communication here. TewfikTalk 20:52, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
  1. The alternative context would be something like the Palestinian report included within the UN report: "On 29 March and throughout the period under report, the Israeli occupying forces waged a large-scale military assault against the Palestinian people, unprecedented in its scope and intensity since the start of the Israeli occupation. The Israeli occupying forces invaded and reoccupied most Palestinian populated centers, including cities, villages and refugee camps and practically all areas under Palestinian control in the West Bank," etc.
  2. The gerrymander I'm referring to is limiting the scope of "post-fighting investigations" to the charge of "massacre."
  3. I've detailed very explicitly what this a la carte approach to the findings of major human rights organizations entails. There's nothing vague whatsoever in my account of it; please read the relevant posts again.
  4. This is a very poor rationale for larding the article with POV-atmospherics. If you feel strongly that it's a sound rationale, put an RfC on the matter. But be aware that if it's decided that atmospherics are permissible so long as they're sourced, there are plenty of a different sort to be found.--G-Dett 21:44, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
  5. If you want the ADL comment, we'll create a section for lay commentary. Stop putting it in the "post-fighting investigations" section.
Finally, "lardy"? I said "larded." It's a verb. It means "4. To intersperse or garnish (speech or writing) with particular words, expressions, ideas, etc.; to interlard" (OED).--G-Dett 21:44, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
  1. That statement is merely a less neutral description of "what" happened. Israeli context is "suicide bombing" (which seems not to be challenged AFAIK, but maybe I am wrong). The Palestinian context would also be a "why".
  2. ~41% of the body's text deals with the extensive discussion of the various investigations ("International statements and human rights reports" comprises 1,730 odd words of about 4,230). If anything, this needs to be cut down. As to whether there should be a section discussing the "massacre" allegations, considering the central position such allegations play in this event and its notability (probably the only reason we are here, since there was far more intense fighting in other events), there certainly should be.
  3. You made reference to a la carte in this edit, presumably because of the "controversial" qualification which you removed, and which 'stayed removed'. You also referenced it regarding the same "controversial" once on talk, again in reference to the ADL passage, and then three times more in the two most recent threads. So maybe the problem is in my comprehension, but I still don't know how to address this general complaint, and I believe that it would be most productive if you could point to specific cases as they happen.
  4. I did not argue that the phrasing belongs 'because it was sourced', but because it is relevant to compare the one weapon with another in the same organisation's armoury, and because a suicide bomb's scale is a frame of reference familiar from the attention it is granted in the news-media. None of the comparisons above about the Nazis in Lidice and the IDF or about these same Palestinian bombs and the IDF are parallel, since this is about Palestinian militants' suicide-bomber scale homemade bombs, and the same Palestinian militants' anti-personnel and anti-materiel homemade bombs.
  5. The ADL comment is a direct response to the "allegations of a massacre" by a notable organisation. As I said several times already, if there are other equally notable comments dealing with this subject matter, only then should we create a second subsection, but no one has yet made any move to include such material.
I am aware of the meaning of larded, and I affirmed my continuing objection to its use in a WP:AGF environment in my comments above. TewfikTalk 23:34, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
  1. I am quite sure you are aware that Israelis tend to cite Palestinian misdeeds as rationales for their actions, while Palestinians tend to cite Israeli misdeeds as rationales for their actions, and that devoting an entire initial paragraph to the Palestinian misdeeds that allegedly led to the subject of this article, the siege of Jenin, is a violation of WP:NPOV. It is possible that you simply have a much more flexible, anything-goes approach to WP:NPOV than I do, but somehow I doubt that. That is to say, if I went to First Intifada and inserted into the lead an entire paragraph devoted to the oppressiveness of the Israeli occupation that, by all accounts, precipitated that uprising, my guess is you'd revert me, and on none other than WP:NPOV grounds. Please correct me if I'm wrong on that last score.
  2. You are quite wrong that the "massacre" allegation is the only thing notable about Jenin. The flattening of a sizable portion of the camp attracted international attention, as did some of the more grisly findings of international human rights organizations, such as wanton killing of civilians, indiscriminate missile attacks on residential areas, the crushing to death of an elderly man in a wheelchair who was not allowed to be evacuated from his home before it was demolished – you know, the findings you keep erasing from the article citing things like WP:UNDUE, even as you shoehorn in lobby statements and a journalist's helpful explanation of just how heavy 113 kilograms is. Other things that make Jenin notable are: the unanimous demand of the international community – including President Bush – that Israel withdraw and end the siege; the findings regarding Israeli war crimes; the international debate it set in motion regarding the ethical dilemmas of urban warfare.
  3. The a-la-carte approach to the findings of human rights organizations is apparent when Jaakabou edits the article to say they're merely "repeating" the claims of Palestinians; when Jaakabou and Kyaa together argue on the talk page that HR groups are no different from lobbies, their reports no different from ADL press releases, except of course when they're refuting massacres in which case they're definitive; and when you insist, again and again, on representing the findings of HRW and Amnesty (regarding the Israelis' indiscriminate use of force) as merely the "allegations" of "Palestinian sources," finally grudgingly conceding that "some international sources" have said it. This a-la-cartism is moreover built into the entire article, suffusing and informing both its tone and structure, a fact I trust you're sufficiently literate to apprehend.
  4. Again, you and I may radically differ in our sense of the strictness of the WP:NPOV policy, but I don't think so. I think if I found similarly atmospheric details from The Nation or Harpers's coverage of Jenin, say, comparing the size of the missile payloads used in the siege to that of the two-ton bombs Israeli jets drop on Gaza, or perhaps comparing the blockading of Jenin to the blockading of Sabra and Shatila during the Sabra and Shatila massacres, and if I reasoned that it was "relevant to compare the one weapon with another in the same organisation's armoury," that the missile fired into a refugee camp and the daisy cutter dropped on an apartment in Gaza are "both manufactured by the same people," or that the reference to the Sabra and Shatila massacre provides the reader with a "a frame of reference familiar from the attention it is granted in the news-media," you would object. I feel confident that you would object, on WP:NPOV grounds. I feel confident, that is, that you know generally what WP:NPOV means, and are merely involved at the moment in some very special pleading.
  5. There is the HRW comment, which is not "equally notable" to the ADL press release but in fact far, far more notable. I added it; you deleted it.
I believe you know and knew all of the above, which is what makes exchanges like this so depressing and enervating. The only thing I believe you didn't know was the meaning of the word "larded," which you evidently mistook for a "fatso"-type insult. The word has its origins in the kitchen, and is a nice word and nice image in my mind. When roasting meats prone to drying out, you take a needle, like a large sewing needle, with a long strip of fat attached to it, and you thread it through the meat and leave it there; many such strips will dissolve during the cooking – moistening, tenderizing and flavoring the meat from the inside. In a properly larded roast, one doesn't taste anything foreign; the flavors have melded. In this case, you larded the dry facts of a defensive barricade with a juicy image of suicide bombing, in the hopes that the latter would dissolve in the reader's mind and flavor his impression of things.--G-Dett 13:36, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
Okay, incivility is still not helping this discussion (It is possible that you simply have a much more flexible, anything-goes approach to WP:NPOV than I do; the findings you keep erasing from the article citing things like WP:UNDUE, even as you shoehorn in lobby statements and a journalist's helpful explanation of just how heavy 113 kilograms is; etc).
  1. Maybe I wasn't clear: what specific alternative reasoning do mainstream sources attribute to the Israelis on behalf of the Palestinians?
  2. I am not arguing that the "massacre allegation" is the only thing notable and so I don't understand why you wrote a paragraph 'disproving' that. My point is that in an event that was widely and erroneously characterised as the Jenin Massacre, a short section discussing the history of those charges and their refutation is in order. As I said before, 2/5 of the body is dedicated to the NGO reports, and I don't think that repeating them throughout the rest of the entry follows our content policies.
  3. I'll only respond to the parts that aren't already covered on other bullets, which is that I didn't "grudgingly concede" that some international sources was an accurate representation, but that I used the formulation while waiting for you to respond to my request above: "I would appreciate if you could provide links and quotes to the mentions that I am missing". Such quotes have not yet been provided, and so the only unqualified allegation of "indiscriminate" that I am aware of is still just the Spanish/EU annex to the UN report. HRW says the IDF was indiscriminate "at times", particularly on the morning of the 16th, while using no such qualification for the Palestinians' tactics. At the very least, the language should be restored to reflect that the charge was mutual. AI does not make the allegation AFAIK.
  4. If one of those sources published a comparison that not only had the same logical consistency ("the bombs were both manufactured by the same people who made suicide bombs"), but also the utility ("and as the latter is a familiar phenomenon, it is an ideal means of comparison"), then inclusion would be appropriate.
  5. I did not delete the HRW comment, but removed the extensive quoting, and moved the actual text from "allegations of a massacre" to the HRW report section, since it was not discussing those allegations, but responding to the UN report.
I've already stated that I know that larded means "embellished" which is the usage that I twice protested to, and which you even acknowledge - why in the world would you think it is okay to accuse me of "...lard[ing] the dry facts of a defensive barricade with a juicy image of suicide bombing, in the hopes that the latter would dissolve in the reader's mind and flavor his impression of things"? To repeat, stop using WP:CIV and WP:AGF violating phrasing - I can appreciate your wit without the hostility, but I can't collaborate with it. TewfikTalk 23:14, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

this sub category about disrutive editing turned into another disruptive rant real fast. let's please try to promote the article. JaakobouChalk Talk 20:46, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

To Eleland: You might be confused as to what I'm referring to, check the history. CAMERA Is not being used as a source in the lead section which G-Dett reverted away and I specifically made mention to. I'm hunting for the CAMERA mention you've complained about and will investigate the reliability of it as a source at that time. (I really should be asleep!) Kyaa the Catlord 22:49, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

previously referred to as the Jenin Massacre

considering this edit that changed:

previously referred to as the Jenin Massacre -> referred to by some as the Jenin Massacre.

it is my contention that the terms 'Jenin' and 'Massacre' were unanimous at around April 15th 2002 regardless if it were CNN, BBC, SkyNEWS (western media) or ArabNews, AlJazeera, etc. (arab media).

after the numbers became evident, western media, and international bodies stopped using this terminology and the only ones who persist are considered unreliable partizans.

i totally agree that we should note this on the article, and we do in the body, but i disagree with the change to the intro, which would have us believe that "some" of the mainstream opinion is to still call it massacre.

if there is any evidence about these some[who?] in mainstream media, then surely we can add this to the article body and if the notability justifies, then we can make the change in the intro also. JaakobouChalk Talk 18:10, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

In literally every report I've seen, and I've gone through dozens including those specifically cited by the ADL as falsely accusing Israel of a massacre, the reports always described talk of massacre as a "rumour", "claim", "statement", "allegation", or sometimes "report". I didn't find a single piece which said "Israel has committed a massacre in Jenin", let alone "here's our report on the Jenin Massacre." It's one thing to say that many news articles contained the words "massacre" and "jenin", perhaps even in the same sentence. It's another to say that CNN, BBC, etc actually referred to the battle as the Jenin Massacre. If it can be shown that all the major Arab satellite outlets, Arab newspapers like al-Ahram or the Daily Star, etc etc started using the term Jenin Massacre, and then later stopped using it, then you have a point. This hasn't been shown. Eleland 18:22, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
  1. i totally agree with you as to how people described the statements of massacre, that is the very reason for the conflict on the 3rd paragraph.
  2. you raise a good point, that perhaps we should note it on the lead that only arab and muslim media (such as....) call it "Jenin Massacre" and that other networks simply allowed this phrasing on their initial reports.
  3. i would appreciate it if you help bring some evidence into the discussion (since you changed something that held for a long time) and suggest ways to resolve this conflict.
-- JaakobouChalk Talk 19:29, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

previously referred to as the Jenin Massacre - round II

previous chatter found here - static version - Sep.6.

since we seem to have quite a few versions on how to phrase the "jenin massacre" name i request people, rather than revert and change to their preferred version, list down the version they prefer 'and the reasoning. if you wish to ask questions or make commentary please do it on the comments and questions section. JaakobouChalk Talk 15:18, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

preferred version

  • 'previously referred to as the Jenin Massacre - i was a tad conflicted about "previously dubbed as" because "jenin massacre" was never an official name albeit the way the fighting was presented. i've decided to support the mellower and more encyclopedic version, to what i consider the previously more common way the "consensus" described the israeli battle inside the camp. JaakobouChalk Talk 15:18, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

comments and questions

  • comment - Can't we slow down on the conflict? The previous one is still smoldering. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1937048.stm The headline calls it a massacre. That's my quick and unfinished research for the moment. Jerseycam 01:35, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
  • comment - The word "massacre" is part of some man's quote. You need reliable sources saying that the battle was indeed previously called "Jenin Massacre". Beit Or 19:28, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
    • reply comment - we have a number of sources in the article body, both mainstream and official sources, who clearly used the massacre terminology during the battle. p.s. one of them is right above your comment. JaakobouChalk Talk 22:07, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
  • elements of a massacre did occur. A UN report concluded that mass killings in the range of 500 did not occur but official Israeli source acknowledge that 52 were killed. A significant part of the public will probably remember it as a massacre. News sources quote it as a massacre. Blame them, not WP. Jerseycam 02:23, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Full text of Ha'aretz article, "Peres calls Jenin a massacre"

Ha'aretz has since removed the following article from their web site. There are many posts on usenet which reprint this article starting on April 9, 2002, and at the time no usenet responsers contested its contents.

Tuesday, April 09, 2002 Nisan 27, 5762 Israel Time: 11:17 (GMT+3) Peres calls Jenin a massacre By Aluf Benn and Amos Harel, Ha'aretz Correspondents

Foreign Minister Shimon Peres is very worried about the expected international reaction as soon as the world learns the details of the tough battle in the Jenin refugee camps, where more than 100 Palestinians have already been killed in fighting with IDF forces. In private, Peres is referring to the battle as a "massacre."

IDF officers also expressed grave reservations Monday over the operation in Jenin. "Because of the dangers," they said, "the soldiers are almost not advancing on foot. The bulldozers are simply 'shaving' the homes and causing terrible destruction. When the world sees the pictures of what we have done there, it will do us immense damage."

"However many wanted men we kill in the refugee camp, and however much of the terror infrastructure we expose and destroy there, there is still no justification for causing such great destruction." Blindjustice 05:01, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

User:Blindjustice - with all due respect, 1 of your refs doesnt work, the 2nd one is a propaganda website and the third link looks like a post on a forum. it's quite possible that haaretz newspaper wrote this down, however, you have to find a normative source and also to write it down in a more newtral way such as stating that haaretz reports that in back rooms peres said... and used the term massacre .. and if you can give the hebrew he used, it would be even a more credible source but enlish would be fine if you just find a proper source. in short, please start out by finding what is considered a WP:RS and we will include the information. JaakobouChalk Talk 07:39, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Lead

Jaakobou, nothing's "unclear about 'prima facie' is cherry picked weasel term" – it's just stupid and deceptive irrelevant inaccurate and misleading, that's all. You should revert. your latest stupid propaganda edit if you wish to be taken seriously.--G-Dett 04:19, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

warning issued. JaakobouChalk Talk 10:45, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
Jaakobou, WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA are important, but core content policies are even more so, and your the edits in question are openly and systematically contemptuous of these.--G-Dett 11:20, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
you'll pardon me if i don't drag myself down to this type of personally oriented WP:SOAP conversation. it would be in excess to squander time on such statements and in all honesty, i have better things to do than look for references on "openly and systematically contemptuous" edits of yours. JaakobouChalk Talk 18:04, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
Jaakobou, I don't care one way or another if you continue this discussion. The point is your talk-page discussions are carried out in bad faith, and are a deliberate waste of everyone's time. You open up little sections like the one on "war crimes," invite all to participate, and then when it's thoroughly established that there were no findings of Palestinian "war crimes," and strong "prima facie evidence of Israeli war crimes," you simply ignore what emerged from your own discussion, and go back to edit-warring over your propaganda version. Then you open up a discussion on "Pallywood," and when faced with critiques you cannot answer – such as a detailed demonstration of the obscurity of both the "film" Pallywood (in actuality a youtube video) and the conspiracy theory the film helped to disseminate through the right-wing pro-Israel blogosphere – you simply abandon the discussion and ignore it.; you go back to inserting your promotional link flogging the racist little video, "per talk." Engagement with you on this page has been a absolute waste of time. If you have something better to do, then by all means do it, but if that something is to continue inserting propaganda into the article, expect to find it reverted without further comment.--G-Dett 18:32, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
please go over WP:NPA. JaakobouChalk Talk 20:08, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
Jaakobou, when you begin to edit in compliance with core policy, and to use talk page discussion in a good-faith way to work toward consensus through serious engagement, you'll find that tempers cool.--G-Dett 20:34, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

verify credibility tags

i'm not sure exactly why this edit was made.

camera has already been established as WP:RS and we have no reason to add these tags when there is no reason to suspect their falsehood. i add to this that similar statements, such as the one made by abdel rahman, are cited in other sources and many of the camera notes have been easily directly referenced before. JaakobouChalk Talk 09:13, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

According to the wikipedia page for CAMERA: "News media cite CAMERA as an advocate of Israel [1] and discuss the organization's mobilisation for the support of Israel in the form of full-page ads in newspapers [2], organizing demonstrations, and encouraging sponsor boycotts. [3] Critics of CAMERA call its "non-partisan" claims into question and define its alleged biases." On what basis do you assert that CAMERA has already been established as a reliable source? Eleland 12:41, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
Jaakobou, please do not say that you are removing the tags "per talk" when I just objected on talk and you haven't responded. CAMERA is a partisan activist organization, not a reliable source. It may be appropriate to include CAMERA POV, properly attributed, in a section on media coverage & responses; however CAMERA must not be used to source highly contentious claims. Indeed, I would have been well within editing policy to totally remove all information sourced to CAMERA, however I did not wish to open that can of worms so I compromised with verify tags. Now you're telling me, in effect, that compromising with "pro-Israel" editors is futile. Very discouraging. Eleland 13:01, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

May I direct you two here: [4] Why don't we get their advice on how to handle CAMERA? Kyaa the Catlord 13:03, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

If you or Jaakobou want to post, give it a whirl. I'm not going to, as I don't see any room for debate here; CAMERA is a nonreliable source. Eleland 13:13, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
As a non-involved party in this article, I have to say that Camera does not appear to be a reliable source. It claims it counters bias in media reports about the Middle East, but a browse through its articles show all of them to be "correcting" anti-Israel bias; I did not find one case where they "corrected" any pro-Israel bias. Number 57 13:32, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
You are confusing 'partisan' with 'non reliable'. The two are not same, or even similar. CAMERA meets every requirement WP has for reliable sources. Isarig 14:54, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
User:Number 57, please stop misrepresenting the level of your involvement.(suggestion, off topic babble) JaakobouChalk Talk 14:25, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
Jaakobou, please stop misrepresenting other users. I have not contributed to the Battle of Jenin article; I have merely made a non-partisan suggestion on the talk page for solving the edit war which you are participating in. Number 57 14:47, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
no one forced you to make statements like As a non-involved party in this article which could be interpreted as a statement that you are an outside NPOV observer. you can always just start with I have to say that Camera.... JaakobouChalk Talk 14:59, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
User:Eleland - allow me to make a small correction to your statement about how i justified my edit. it was verifiability of camera (see talk)[5]. it doesn't matter what side a source is supporting as long as it's references and statements are reliable. for the same reason, i cannot remove The Guardian articles or the BBC for that matter despite their anti-israel bias. do you have anything beyond "they say they support israel" or "they only correct anti-israeli POV" to justify your claim that the source in unreliable? JaakobouChalk Talk 14:25, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
I have a very good reason for justifying its exclusion: they claim they counter bias in media reports about the Middle East, but a browse through its articles show all of them to be "correcting" anti-Israel bias and no cases of "correcting" any pro-Israel bias. If that isn't a strong argument for bias, what is? Number 57 14:51, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
That is not a good reason to exclude it. You are confusing 'partisan' with 'non reliable'. The two are not same, or even similar. CAMERA meets every requirement WP has for reliable sources. Isarig 14:54, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
we're not discussing bias, we're discussing reliability in report. to repeat myself: do you have anything beyond "they say they support israel" or "they only correct anti-israeli POV" to justify your [the] claim that the source in unreliable? JaakobouChalk Talk 14:59, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Since a newly involved editor now declares that "CAMERA meets every requirement WP has for reliable sources", which I find hugely dubious, I've taken the issue to WP:RS noticeboard per Kyaa's suggestion. Eleland 16:19, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

  • Comment - It should be glaringly obvious that articles entitled "A Study in Palestinian Duplicity and Media Indifference", containing such material as "despite copious evidence of their blatant lying ... refuting their fictitious 'massacre'" have no place in the reference list of an enyclopedia. This article already lets us down badly on a good number of counts - let's not drag it down even further with this kind of highly dubious and unpleasant nonsense. PalestineRemembered 10:30, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
    • Comment OOC: I wish I could use this line of reasoning on Bill O'Reilly or Anne Coulter's articles. I'd wash away all those FAIR and Media Matters for America references in a heartbeat. Kyaa the Catlord 10:44, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
      • Response - if you see links in the encyclopedia to anything as angry and partisan and unreliable as CAMERA, I promise you I'll support you getting them out. Have a look at this CAMERA article, laced with weasel words of denial over expulsions and massacres and eg trickery intended to defend Jonathan Pollard. PalestineRemembered 14:07, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
        • note, PR, you have full right to maintain your personal POVs, however, this article is signed by a person with a PhD and your treatment of this text is somewhere in the highly POV realm. it would be as though i would delete all finklstein sources from wikipedia because i feel he often lies to make his anti-israel points. JaakobouChalk Talk 16:27, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
    • comment, I note that we also have a link in this article to "Jenin Camp Official Web Site" (currently ref no. 8) and also have a BBC article that is titled "Jenin 'massacre evidence growing'" (currently ref no. 30). i agree that if the originals are found, then the camera link can be replaced and i have no problem with people working to find the originals, however, the justiication to tag the source as unreliable like it's been done in this case is invalid considering that most of it's statements have already been easily referenced and also that most of the others are already repeated in similar fashion on other references. JaakobouChalk Talk 12:21, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
To Kyaa re "OOC": Um, I just checked both articles and found no references to FAIR in O'Reilly and precisely one in Coulter, which was attributed inline as a POV commentary statement by the group. Coulter's bio has Media Matters cited once as well, on a completely non-contentious background point which is also sourced to the Washington Times. Media Matters was cited once on O'Reilly for a quote that can hardly be called "contentious". Oh, there we go, took me five minutes to find the YouTube clip [6] and another 4 minutes, 4 seconds to watch up to the point where he says it. (Worst 4m 40s of my life.) Looks like your point is completely baseless - which I already knew, because I have fought losing battles to allow FAIR sourcing even with attribution as a POV commentary source! And, by the way, isn't OOC used to mean "out of character" on fantasy role-playing chats? I must say you seem confused here, "Catlord". Eleland 18:58, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
This is fascinating. Kyaa points out that media monitoring groups who are just as partisan as CAMERA (but in an opposite direction, of course) are used to bash figures in the American conservative movement. She names 2 such groups and 2 such articles, as non-exhaustive examples. You confirm that on both of the articles, those partisan groups are used, in one case not even as a secondary source for an uncontention claim (as is the case here for CAMERA), but as a POV commentary, yet have the audacity to call Kyaa's claims 'completely baseless'. And on top of that, you reveal that you have pushed to include more such sources in other articles as well and lost. Perhaps you should spend some time editing the Hypocricy article. Isarig —The preceding signed but undated comment was added at 19:16, August 21, 2007 (UTC).
I find it hard to believe that you really don't understand what I meant by "attributed inline as a POV commentary." It is usual and normal to include POV statements from partisan groups, attributed as such. For example, "according to CAMERA, a pro-Israel media monitoring group, 'European media and particularily London newspapers were completely duped by the nefarious propaganda'", or, 'according to FAIR, a leftist media watch organization, Chavez was the victim of 'blatant distortions and misrepresentations based on contempt for socialism itself'". Those are POV statements that might well belong in an encyclopedia, because we include POVs as long as they are properly attributed. This article is using CAMERA to source matters of fact, which is completely different. Kyaa's claims were, indeed, completely baseless, to go by the examples he provided. No contentious claims of fact were sourced to FAIR or MMfA, only one harmless biographical point which had another source, and one extremely well-known quote which was played and replayed on national television. Your final claim, about hypocrisy, is incomprehensible and may constitute a personal attack. Please withdraw it. Eleland 19:47, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
Let me be perfectly comprehensible then: when someone admits to pushing for one kind of partisan sourced to be included in WP articles, while at the same time calling for the exclusion of other partisan sources (of the opposite side of the political fence) on the grounds of their alleged partisanship, he is displaying a double standard called hypocricy. This is what you are doing. I have no intention of withdrawing this, unless you clarify your actions. The usage of CAMERA in this article is for the same kind of non-contentious claims of fact which have another source, namely the primariy one cited by CAMERA, and are well-known quotes which were played and replayed on national television or appeard in widley circulted newspapers. Isarig 19:55, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
Excluding CAMERA is unfair, and accomplishes nothing. It is an established, viable credible group. the best response would be to provide balancing information from similar groups on the other side of the issue. That is the most beneficial course for articles on this set of issues. When dealing with controversial topics like this one, it is not helpful to try to create objectivity where none exists. A viable, useful alternative is to use balanced sources from both sides. Otherwise, we will continually edit-war over viable, credible groups which belong to one side or the other (like we're doing right now). --Steve, Sm8900 19:21, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
It might be worth stating that the encyclopedia has policies, one of which is "Reliable Sources". CAMERA is a source that distorts it's material, as I've demonstrated above over the Dayan article (and you can do the same for yourself over the Jonathan Pollard article).
It's entirely possible that there are opposing sources that do the same, they need to be identified and eliminated too. I've offered to help Kyaa deal with such material. PalestineRemembered 19:30, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
Are all advocacy groups or media watchdog groups for specific political groups views considered distorted? What about FAIR? What about the ADL? What about Greenpeace? What about the Democratic PArty? Why should credible groups be excluded just because they have a political constituency? I disagree with that approach. --Steve, Sm8900 19:35, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
None of those groups would be suitable sources for factual claims. All of those groups would be suitable sources for POV commentary statements, properly attributed in the text. Claims of fact should be sourced to media or academic publications, not to partisan pressure groups. Eleland 20:38, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
Ok, but I think they can be sourced when commenting on others's partisan statements. --Steve, Sm8900 21:28, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
We're here to write an encyclopedia, we should not be retailing "comment on others partisan statements". We should be using what Reliable Sources claim about various events. There are cases when we could be forced to use sources that are highly partisan and appear to distort things for statements of facts that are not too "surprising". I'm not sure that that arises in this case, and we should certainly not be using organisations so blatantly partisan and provably misleading as CAMERA unless we really have to do so. (There may be Palestinian sources which are not worth inclusion too - but at the moment we're excluding the considered statements of the Palestinian Authority, ditto the UN and EU, which is another reason why this article is still such a disgrace).
If you're scouting round for areas in which this article urgently needs improvement, look at this section, where it becomes clear that "context" does not belong in the lead of the article. Despite this being something one of our fellow editors thought was worth checking, no effort has been made to fix it and I'm trying not to interfere. PalestineRemembered 21:49, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
I see. So if Palestinian advocacy groups, or human rights groups, or protest groups are able to list and describe Israeli human rights violations in detail, then in your opinion those statements have no place anywhere in Wikipedia? I assume you would disagree with that statement. Then please don't deny the right to add statements of advocacy groups and other partisan groups.
Please remember that Wikipedia is the product of continual compromises and mutual understandings. i suggest we not make blanket statements dengirating the value of anyone's material or information. I respect the heartfelt concerns and opions held by the Palestinian side, even when i may disagree totally. So I ask that others respect my concerns and opinions as well. I think your statement itself was very respectful and judicious, but the result of excluding such sources totally on a blanket basis would be to exclude the concerns of one side or the other. --Steve, Sm8900 13:29, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Okay, if I have to say this one more time, I'm going to explode. This isn't about quoting CAMERA for POV-advocacy statements! It's totally fine to include their comments and concerns, but I strongly oppose any use of CAMERA for factual claims. "The pro-Israeli group CAMERA condemned Palestinian Minister Abu's 'blatant libel and gross distortions'[1]" is one thing. "Palestinian Minister Abu said 'They are burying children in mass graves'[1]" is another. We need to do better than a partisan advocacy group which devotes itself to quote-farming the enemy and considers "context" equivalent to "pro-Israel apologism". Eleland 18:12, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Your hypocritical stance about using partisan sources for factual claims when the partisans are FAIR, Media Matters and the like, but excluding them when the partisans are pro-Israel was noted. That aside, there is no reason whatsoever not to use CAMERA as a secondary source for quotes made in well known nespapers, by international press agencies and on broadcast televsion, where the primary source is noted by CAMRERA and can be easily verified by anyone wishing to validate it. Isarig 18:18, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Well then, I've officially exploded. What I said was, "I have fought losing battles to allow FAIR sourcing even with attribution as a POV commentary source!" You know very well this isn't "hypocritical", when I have been making it clear in practically every post that I have no problem citing CAMERA... with attribution as a POV commentary source. Eleland 19:12, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
If you ever catch me using a source as bad as CAMERA, please tell me. If you ever see a source as bad as CAMERA used in any article, then tell me and I'll help you to get it back and try to get articles back on track.
In the meantime, there are people here much less experienced than you, and it would be nice to help them become even more productive editors with explanations of policy, examples of where it can be misunderstood and so forth. PalestineRemembered 18:55, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
You're kidding, right? The bulk of your contributions to WP's mainspace is based on the most extreme, most baised and partsian web sites around, from the website of a partisan group claiming Israel knowingly attacked a US ship, through the extreme left website of organizations calling for civil disobediance, to the blatantly one-sided organization which is your namesake. Isarig 19:22, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Congratulations, you must have trawled my entire editing history to find these cases, because two of them date from my very first days editing I-P. And yet ..... you've referenced three statements that are almost certainly correct (because they're highly specific and factual, and each would be extremely easy to "falsify" if they were wrong). Your anger is puzzling indeed - because more than the statements just being "100% true", the web-sites themselves are far better than the recklessly bad (and angry) articles of CAMERA. Let's just look at each of the diffs:
  • Quoting a group of US servicemen (who have checked rather carefully) as saying: "Virtually every knowledgeable American official ..... is on public record calling the attack deliberate and the Israeli story untrue."[7]
  • Quoting a group of Israelis (who have checked rather carefully) as saying: "The "Black Flag Defense" has failed to protect any IDF serviceman from conviction for "refusing to obey orders" (in 50 years).[8]
  • And referencing photographs of pages from one of Benny Morris's books (of which I have a different edition).[9]
Compare the sources I've used with CAMERA. The very article you insist on referencing is entitled "A Study in Palestinian Duplicity and Media Indifference" - and contains such gems as "despite copious evidence of their blatant lying ... refuting their fictitious 'massacre'". It might be time to stop using such very poor material in the encyclopedia, it's clearly not an acceptable RS. And you never know, switching to texts filled with civilised discourse and much better information might suit you. PalestineRemembered 21:34, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Your rationalizations for why your prefered partisan sources are 'almost certainly correct' are amusing, but do not change the fact that you are repeatedly using baised, partisan and extremist sources on WP articles you edit, so to hear you complain about CAMERA as a source is comical, and for you to self-righteously pretend you do not use such sources and ask to be alerted about it if you do, is disingenious, to say the least. Rest assured that those using CAMERA as a source feel about it just the way you feel about your partisan sources - they are convinced that what CAMERA says is 'almost certainly correct' , they argue convincingly that CAMERA quotes are 'highly specific and factual, and each would be extremely easy to "falsify" if they were wrong' etc... That you can't see the double standard you are using here is amazing. Isarig 22:10, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
All three of my uses of non-RS sources (which all look rather reasonable) were ruthlessly exised from the articles in question (quite likely by yourself). You've proved the opposite of what you set out to do. You insisted on the erasure of points from such non-RS sources (quoted/used in perfectly straightforward and non-controversial ways), now you insist on including these highly contentious/"surprising" claims from CAMERA PalestineRemembered 10:12, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
Isarig, stop trying to make this into some kind of monkey-trial of PalestineRemembered's past edits; your distortions and evasions are looking increasingly unsustainable. The emerging consensus on AN/RS is clear: groups like CAMERA may be appropriate as POV commentary sources, but are generally not acceptable as factual sources. Since you claim that these quotations were widely reported in papers & TV stations, go ahead and find those sources. You may have some trouble, though, considering that many of the supposed "quotes" from CAMERA yield zero Google hits outside of CAMERA: [10] [11] [12] Eleland 02:33, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
  • comment - we've already found direct links to quite a lot of that article's references, i find your comment/google-search misleading and incorrect to a fault. p.s. i don't mind replacing camera with originals when they are found. JaakobouChalk Talk 11:13, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
  • p.s. your representation of "the concensus" (as presented by the uninvolved editors) on the WP/RS discussion is innaccurate as well. JaakobouChalk Talk 11:21, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
I don't see how those google searches could be misleading. I took what CAMERA had in quotes, and searched for it. And there's no such idiom in english as "incorrect to a fault". I'm glad that you've managed to confirm some of CAMERA's quotes and replace them with originals (something I started working on several days ago). That doesn't mean that we can just leave contentious and unconfirmed quotes sitting around untouched. Eleland 12:09, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Oh, and as for WP/RS, I have noticed only two uninvolved editors commenting (three if you count Nishidani) and they both said that CAMERA should be used with caution if at all. You responded to Hornplease, who said "Using only quotes available through a single article in an advocacy website leaves us open to the risk of unbalanced reporting," so I trust you read the full comment. DGG opined, "CAMERA is obviously not a generally reliable source for controversial material." Both suggested that the best remedy is finding the originals, of which I also approve. Eleland 12:15, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
User:Eleland, you're misrepresenting both their words with selective reading/interpretation and also user:nishidani's level of involvement in ME articles. this behavior is unsuitable and should be avoided if you don't want other editors to escalate their reactions to you. JaakobouChalk Talk 15:35, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
p.s. your google search really shows nothing about the factualness of the quote and the fact remains that similar quotes are already referenced, thus we have no reason to suspect these are false. JaakobouChalk Talk 15:39, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
User:Jaakobou - this question has been taken to the RS noticeboard for consideration, where it should have been discussed by non-involved editors from the community. It's difficult to understand why experienced editors from here immediately weighed in, expressing the exact same views they'd expressed on this page. But there was some outside comment, and it is clear that very great caution must be taken with referencing to CAMERA. Please abide by the consensus reached there and do not use CAMERA for material that cannot be verified (as we're informed is the case here).
In addition, you earlier raised the question of whether "context" should be in the lead of this article, and received an unequivocable answer, it does not belong. No equivalent articles have it. It is not the purpose of this TalkPage to have endless discussions about policy and then not apply it. Please make the corrections to the relevant section that the answers to your question indicated. PalestineRemembered 15:53, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
If I have misinterpreted those comments, go ahead and point out how and where, and tell me what you believe they said. In addition, please note that I said "two uninvolved editors commenting (three if you count Nishidani)", which clearly implies that there could be valid reasons for excluding Nishidani as an "uninvolved editor". It is very frustrating to laboriously explain these things - perhaps inexperience in English is causing communication problems?
My Google searches were certainly not intended as some kind of "proof of fabrication" on CAMERA's part. It's entirely possible that all those quotes were accurate and presented in context. My Google searches do show that quite probably none of these quotes appear anywhere on the public Internet except on CAMERA's site, which is significant if not conclusive.
In addition, please acknowledge that there is no "burden of proof" on editors to disprove contentious poorly sourced information. It doesn't matter whether 50 or 80 or 99% of these quotes turn out to be accurate. Imagine what a smear job one could do on Israel or Zionism if allowed 20% fabricated or dubious quotations. Even if we somehow knew that these words were quoted accurately, we don't know the context, we don't know whether the speaker immediately retracted, corrected, or amended his comment, etc, etc ad nauseum. Eleland 16:05, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
It is neither conclusive, nor significant, nor even correct. Of the 3 examples you cited as 'none of these quotes appear anywhere on the public Internet except on CAMERA's site" - one appears on CNN's web site, and is identical with the section quoted by CAMERA: [13]. The other two are CAMERA translations of a French press release, and a German article, so it is not surprising that you are unable to find the exact English text. This article used CAMERA as a source for more than half a dozen quotes, and each and evrey one was found to be 100% accurate when compared with the original source. That in itself, is pretty conclusive evidence ethat CAMERA is a relaible source. Isarig 17:00, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
What I said was, "My Google searches do show that quite probably none of these quotes appear anywhere on the public Internet except on CAMERA's site", and now you've quoted me while omitting the "quite probably". Your point about the translated text is interesting, although Agence France Presse publishes extensively in English and CAMERA did not indicate that the quotation appeared in French or in a press release.
Your concept of what constitutes a reliable source is highly idiosyncratic and does not seem to be grounded in Wikipedia policies. I don't see where on WP:RS it says, "If a group is cited for more than six quotes, and these quotations are found to be accurate, then it's a reliable source." And in any case, there are still four quotes sourced to CAMERA which are not sourced elsewhere - so where do you get this "100% accurate" claim? If it's 100% accurate, replace the damn CAMERA citations and you can put a stop to this whole thing right now. All I have ever asked is that quotes sourced to CAMERA alone should be tagged with {{verify credibility}} and preferably replaced with their originals. The decision by "pro-Israel" editors to turn this into a protracted jihad is maddeningly childish. Eleland 17:27, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
My concept of what constitutes a reliable source is grounded in both WP policy , and in reality. Those asserting a source is unreliable or questionable should explain why, and prove it. With regards to the CAMERA quotes, those opposed to its use claimed it is partisan, and questioned whether or not the quotes are real. If they are unable to point to any quote which is fabricated, and when the quotes they do check turn out to be 100% accurate, that is a good indication of the reliability of the source. If you want to spend time finding the original sources - go for it. But please don't interject POV tags for those you haven't found or habven't searched for, when they are non-contentious and cite the original source. Isarig 17:34, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Once more: there is no "burden of disproof" when it comes to reliability. WP:V says that "The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material. All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged should be attributed to a reliable, published source..." which would seem to extend logically and naturally to the question of source reliability. In any case, I would refer you to the reasoned comments made at the RS noticeboard, which you have not addressed. As to finding the original sources, you know very well that this tiff started when I replaced some rather poor sources with more reliable ones, and noted that I couldn't find originals of some of CAMERA's quotes. Stop trying to turn this back on me, or PalestineRemembered, or whoever else you can find. We aren't here to do your work for you. Eleland 18:16, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
The time is rapidly approaching where Isarig's understanding of policy will need to be verified by ArbCom. What he's said there bears no relation to policy, it's the inverse of the same. This matter has been taken to the RS noticeboard, where (despite the aggressive intrusion of already involved editors who should have known better), the consensus is that CAMERA is dubious. Other editors have tried and failed to verify the quotes from this source. Verifiability is a core policy of Wikipedia, and cannot be overturned in this fashion. PalestineRemembered 19:09, 23 August 2007 (UTC) I'm not sure if this is a personal attack on anyone, but I'm striking it through in case anyone was/is offended by it. PalestineRemembered 13:39, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

suggestions to take this discussion out of the current state and help advance the article. Eleland, please start a new subsection with 2 statements from the camera source that you feel are inaccurate and you are contesting their accuracy. i will do my best to alleviate your concerns. JaakobouChalk Talk 22:54, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I do not exactly "contest" these quotes; I have no particular reason to believe they are false or out of context. I simply want to see them verified. That's why I tagged them [verification needed]. I contest their inclusion in the Wikipedia article. There are currently 3 quotes sourced to CAMERA alone and one to CAMERA plus a Washington Times piece by a freelancer who is mainly known for magically producing "scoop" quotations of Arab / Muslim groups in the Mideast, which nobody else can verify, from his desk in London, England.

For your convenience, the quotes and paraphrases are:

  • April 6 - in an Arab League emergency meeting Nabil Shaath, at the time a Palestinian chief negotiator, delivers a speech in which he claims the IDF soldiers were commanded to completely destroy Jenin and compares Israeli actions in the West Bank towns of Jenin and Nablus to the Sabra and Shatila Massacre.[27]
  • April 7 - Saeb Erekat, a Palestinian minister and chief Palestinian negotiator is quoted in the Washington Times making the first allegation of a massacre made in a Western media publication.[27]
In addition to the source's credibility problems (both CAMERA and the Washington Times), the "first allegation" claim does not appear in the cited source.
  • NBC News hears from Secretary-General of the Palestinian Authority Abdel Rahman that "over 250 Palestinians killed".[27]
In addition to the credibility problem, it is not clear that CAMERA meant this quote to be applied to Jenin or to "Defensive Shield" generally. Whether they do or not, we haven't the means to determine this because we don't have the original quote. Do you see what I'm getting at with the maintenance tags?
  • April 30 - Qadoura Mousa, the director of Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement for the northern West Bank set the total dead at 56 after a team of four Palestinian-appointed investigators reported to him in his Jenin office.[37][27]
In this case CAMERA is simply quoting and reproducing the Times piece, but I certainly am ready to question the credibility of Paul Martin (or "Sayed Anwar" when he's writing under his misleading pen-name) at least as much as CAMERA.

Anyway, I appreciate that finally a pro-Israel editor is willing to engage productively. I just wish it hadn't taken all this drama. The huge volume of text generated over a couple of maintenance tags should be an embarrassment to all involved. Eleland 00:12, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

User:Eleland, if you wish to run an investigation about Paul Martin, it would be best to run it off the pages of wikipedia. for the actual text, i will start the subsection tomorrow and see what i can get to support and/or replace the reference, hopfully it will be satisfactory.
side note: some of the finest quotes about israeli "attrocities" came from these desks in london, england. JaakobouChalk Talk 02:40, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
User:Jaakobou - before we see another attempt at an end-run around established Wikipedia policy, lets get back to the discussion you started on "context" in the lead. Much of what is currently in there needs to come out, per the discussion - lets get that part right first. (Needless to say, the discussion on CAMERA was completed at the noticeboard, it's not suitable for very much atall, certainly not tertiary references for sources that nobody can find). PalestineRemembered 07:23, 24 August 2007 (UTC) I'm not sure if this is a personal attack on anyone, but I'm striking it through in case anyone was/is offended by it. PalestineRemembered 13:39, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
PR, i've already given you my points regarding your perspective on this issue and this is not the proper subsection for this discussion. to be frank, i don't think there is any proper subsection for this discussion unless you want to take it to 3rd Opinion/RfC. JaakobouChalk Talk 08:39, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

April 6

the following was made in continuation to 'verify credibility tags' (Sep. 4 static version).

in this section, we're trying to validate this part as much as possible, to alleviate concerns regarding it's factuality (two more sections will be opened in the future. JaakobouChalk Talk 09:20, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

April 6 - in an Arab League emergency meeting Nabil Shaath, at the time a Palestinian chief negotiator, delivers a speech in which he claims the IDF soldiers were commanded to completely destroy Jenin and compares Israeli actions in the West Bank towns of Jenin and Nablus to the Sabra and Shatila Massacre.

article source: Deutsche Presse-Agentur, April 6 (on CAMERA)

Validation notes - result:source validated

article title: "Arabs set terms for meeting with Powell"
published by: Deutsche Presse-Agentur
Date of Publication: April 6
Quote Validation: checked.

source availability: only for purchase - cost: 25 euro.

validating editor - JaakobouChalk Talk 09:20, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

discussions/notes

  • question - Can you explain what this means? Did you pay for this report and are you personally verifying what it says (what does it say?). If this is the case, it would be useful if you provided a photograph of the relevant portion. When I was challenged over another case (in which, incidentally, the genuineness of my claim was well known - unlike this case), I sent a picture of myself with the reference in my hand to a neutral intermediary. PalestineRemembered 10:03, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
First of all, I asked you - What does this reference mean and what does it say? None of it is clear from what you're saying. It would be terrible if people simply inserted nonsense and thereby made all work on this article impossible, instead of merely excruiatingly difficult.
Secondly, when I added "After the November 1944 assassination of Lord Moyne, the Jewish Agency Executive publically condemned the act and declared a series of measures against what they called "terrorist organizations" in Palestine. In 1975, Israel recovered the bodies of Lord Moyne's 2 assassins in exchange for 20 Arab prisoners. The bodies "lay in Jerusalem's Hall of Heroism and were given a military burial on Mt Herzl" [2]."[14] I was required to produce a photograph of myself with the book in which this was cited (and this despite the facts alluded to were very well known, having caused outrage in Parliament). I'm asking you to present some form of similar evidence (I can advise you of the neutral witness who carried out this verification for me).
Thirdly, let me remind you of WP policy of verification. I might start counting the number of occasions I've had to remind you of this, a core principle of the encyclopedia. PalestineRemembered 12:41, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
1) i don't have an answer to "what does it mean". 2) i have no intention to pay 25 euros to be able to notify you on what it says beyond the verified given quote. 3) when some people show up, we'll deal with it. please refrain from figurative speech, the implications are quite uncivil and you've been duly noted about these matters. 4) i don't see your old edits as source for example or discussion. 5) i suggest you discuss this verifiability issue with your mentor. JaakobouChalk Talk 14:30, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
Jaakobou what the heck are you doing. You don't have the article, you didn't read the article, and you didn't say so until prompted. This is borderline academic fraud — I'm not going to accuse you of that because I think you just don't know what you're doing, rather than being malicious. But I urge you to take down these silly "Validation: confirmed" type headers. Eleland 16:04, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
User:Eleland, if you notice, i did get the full details of the article that are publicly available without purchase, including purchasing price. is it so hard to believe that getting the information is very easy, we've easily found all the others so what makes these quotes so special?
p.s. if you're "not" going to accuse me of something, you should maybe not write it down. JaakobouChalk Talk 20:44, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
It would be nice if we could get those details too, and some way to confirm them. But anyway, it doesn't make a difference. We need to see the full quote in context or else we have only CAMERA's word to go on, and most editors are not prepared to go on their word for such issues. I said it was borderline academic fraud, fraud requires intent, you simply didn't understand that by saying you'd "validated" the quote you implied that you'd actually, you know, obtained the quote and read it. Again, please take the headers down. I hate editing comments but I'm willing to do it because you have designed it to look like some kind of official process and I don't want anyone to be mislead. Eleland 21:42, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
User:Eleland, i wanted to see the full details also but i was denied the option. i did however make the full validation about this quote and source. i suggest you go over WP:AGF and/or that you dedicate 25 euros. i note you again that the article's full title is (not on the camera source) is given.
p.s. if you insist, you can open up a wiki discussion on WP/RSN, but to be frank, i consider these polemics disruptive after you've already noted that you don't believe the quotes "are false or out of context",[15] and i'm validating them still. JaakobouChalk Talk 22:59, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
I said that "I have no particular reason to believe they are false or out of context." (em mine just now). I have no way of knowing. Apparently, nobody here has any way of knowing, because nobody here has seen the article. We need to see the full quote in context or else we have only CAMERA's word to go on, and most editors are not prepared to go on their word for such issues. Also, is it possible for you to link to the page which shows the article details, or to provide instructions for finding it if it's not linkable? Or did you take some other action like a phone call to verify that the publisher did have an article of that title on that date? Please elaborate. Eleland 18:45, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
phone call. JaakobouChalk Talk 19:22, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

offtopic

Jaakobou - you called for a somewhat similar (but more important) exercise over what material belongs in the lead, should it have "context". It was proved that the lead should not "contain context". Now you've been informed of this fundamental way that the encyclopedia works (backed by a reading of WP:LEAD) can you please make the necessary corrections. Please do this before we waste still more time on relatively minor details such as this one. Incidentally, we still don't even have the total death-toll claimed by the PA and published by the UN in this article - it's absurd to be delving into this kind of rhetorical detail when such glaring factual omissions remain. PalestineRemembered 10:21, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

PR, i believe i've replied to this twice already. i'm only interested in promoting this article, not in polemics. if this issue is of great concern to you, i suggest (a second time) you request a 3rd opinion or an RfC. JaakobouChalk Talk 10:38, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
Jaakobou - you asked us all to consider how the lead of this article should be treated. You got your answer, you've not put it into effect (and I'm fairly sure you've never explained why you did not do this). Before we go through yet another long rambling discussion (this time on a fairly minor detail), please demonstrate your commitment to improving some of the major failings of this article.
And don't suggest going to RfC over it, because we just did that over the use of CAMERA as an RS. The community said "no it's not an RS", but the related sections have still not been brought into compliance with WP policy. Please do so before wasting all our time on another discussion. PalestineRemembered 12:54, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
PR, i believe i've replied to this three times already. JaakobouChalk Talk 14:30, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

extras

  • [16] palestinian based international press center with media accounts on the Jenin battle. (offtopic)

April 7

the following was made in continuation to 'verify credibility tags' (Sep. 4 static version).

in this section, we're trying to validate this part as much as possible, to alleviate concerns regarding it's factuality. JaakobouChalk Talk 10:48, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

April 7 - Saeb Erekat, a Palestinian minister and chief Palestinian negotiator is quoted in the Washington Times making the first allegation of a massacre made in a Western media publication.

article source: Betsy Pisik of The Washington Times quoting Saeb Erekat (on Camera).

Validation notes - result:source validated

article title: "Israel warns Lebanon, Syria they risk a new border war"
published by: Betsy Pisik, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Date of Publication: April 7
Quote Validation: checked.

full quote text:

´This is not fighting between armies, but a massacre in Jenin camp,´ chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said yesterday on CNN, comparing the situation to the 1982 massacre of hundreds of Pakestinians [sic] in Lebanese refugee camps Sabra and Shatila.

source availability: first 3 paragraphs free, the rest for purchase - cost: 4.95 USD: - link.

validating editor - JaakobouChalk Talk 00:49, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

discussions/notes

offtopic

User:Jaakobou - the problem you have is exactly what you've described - reports that "a massacre did not occur have received scant attention in the Western news media". In other words, most of the world still thinks of it as the "Jenin massacre", and that phrase should be prominently in the article (in fact, it should be the title of the article). Note - I've listed the really severe problems of this article, and I didn't even bother pointing out the serious POV of the current title! Are you now prepared to agree to this article being edited to WP policy? PalestineRemembered 20:17, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

PR, please stop using WP as a soapbox, i'm starting to lose my patience. JaakobouChalk Talk 20:33, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
Comment - this is the problem you're up against. The Western news media has indeed paid scant attention to reports that this was not a massacre. That's why this article should be entitled Jenin massacre and entire POV sections removed. I've made lists of really serious problems with this article, I've just never got round to pointing out the serious problem with the name of the article itself. PalestineRemembered 21:31, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

extras

  • [17] - Betsy Pisik, The Washington Times, 2002/05/04
    • Abu Ali, who has spent his entire life in the refugee camp. "I know that 500 people died here, and [soldiers] took the bodies away before they left,"
    • Jenin's anger and misery have been broadcast around the world, fanning hatred of Israel and support for the Palestinian Authority. But reports that a massacre did not occur have received scant attention in the Western news media. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jaakobou (talk • contribs) 10:55, August 24, 2007 (UTC)

Happy Flowers Fun Time

formerly titled: Selective removal of sources for POV reasons; selective reading of ambiguous poorly translated texts

Tell me, what basis could there be for changing "According to Palestinian sources, the European Union, and international human rights organizations, the camp and its dwellings were attacked indiscriminately..." to "Palestinians claimed that Israel indiscriminately and deliberately bombed all the houses...". Prima facie, this looks like an attempt to downplay the level of damage and, indirectly, to mock the Palestinian claims. in addition, "deliberately bombed all the houses" is sourced to a beta-version machine translation from Arabic which is barely intelligible. The full quote is: "Formed houses that residents believe it is safe, a direct target of Israeli forces deliberately bombed all the houses are, without exception, destroying hundreds of them have been leveled by bulldozers and missiles and land, while the majority of houses are uninhabitable because of the size of the massive destruction inflicted upon her." Eleland 21:34, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

  1. i love the NPOV title of this subsection.
  2. if you go over the sources and note who said what, talk about selectiveness could get really interesting.
  3. if you think an edit with the guardian's obscene bias can last in the intro you're probably mistaken, i'm not going to change it yet, i'm giving you a cahnce to improve it first.
  4. i'm reminding you that quotes about explosives in civillian areas are in existance, and when you rewrite you should keep thatinmind when mentioning damages to the camp.

-- JaakobouChalk Talk 23:05, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Titles of sections on talk pages are not required to be NPOV. Your accusation of selectiveness is worthless without elaboration. I cited the Guardian for an extremely widely reported incident; [18] [19] [20] [21] or just do the damn Google search yourself: there are 165 hits for "Ron Kitrey" + "apparently hundreds". If you can find reliable published sources which assert that Palestinian explosives were responsible for any significant portion of the destruction to the camp, include it, otherwise it's original research by synthesis. Do note that the line "causing extensive damage", referring to the Israeli bulldozers, is a direct quote from IDF Brigadier Eival Giladi speaking in an official capacity. You appear to be arguing with your own side here. Eleland 03:19, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

all this is polemics. i noted to you to consider fixing up your version before i get around to examining it fully, i think you already know some of the issues which will be contested but i don't see the point of running such discussions on this ridiculously titled subsection. JaakobouChalk Talk 04:11, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
I do not see how anything I've said remotely approaches meeting the definition of a polemic. I have altered the title to dodge your lame, lame excuse for not engaging in discussion. Happy now? Eleland 04:18, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
i'm on Happy Flowers Fun Time. JaakobouChalk Talk 07:09, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

ill help you out with a couple things i'm requesting you to re-examine and fix: (1) comparing the palestinian massacre claimes with one IDF person with a generic estimate (which was reverted(!)) close to the end of fighting (give a good look at the dates of each statement), meanning that it came much after the news were already stating bogus numbers ad not the other way around. (2) placeing the blame of the damages squarly on the IDF (checkup the UN source and the term "widely"). (3) placing the statements by palestinian officials with their repetitions by other sources on the same level. JaakobouChalk Talk 15:30, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

1: No such comparison is made, although IDF publicist Capt. Jacob Dallal, whom I cite, does make it very clearly. I'm not sure what you mean by a "generic" estimate, and both the Sydney Morning Herald and the IDF Captain describe numerous inflated Israeli estimates. Please read the "references" section and explain why you think you know better. 2: Again, the phrase "extensive damage" is explicitly used by an IDF general with intimate knowledge of the events, referring to armoured bulldozers. The word "widely" does not appear in the material I rewrote. I checked up the EU submission to the UN source and I can't make out a reading which suggests that the blame for the damages does not lie on the IDF. The idea that the Palestinians blew up their own camp is not only unsupportable by sources, it's a vile libel, in many ways as contemptible as certain infamous historical libels with which we're both familiar. 3: I do not comprehend this objection; I simply don't understand what you're trying to say. 4: A general comment; it is rarely helpful to raise disputes about points which are apparently well sourced without offering other sources which seem to contradict them. This type of discussion wastes time and effort and interferes with the development of the article. Because I know that you and other editors may disagree with some of the points raised, and because I expect that mainstream international media reports would be challenged as anti-Israel, I made a successful effort to source all contentious claims to Israeli or clearly pro-Israeli sources. Unfortunately, it seems that this has made little difference. Eleland 18:33, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
very well, i assume we'll get around to each of the three issues (and others maybe) when i find a little extra time for it. meantime i suggest you at least reinspect how you edited the paragraph and reconsider making some of the fixes. JaakobouChalk Talk 20:12, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
Eleland's latest efforts [22] have markedly improved the lead, I think. nadav (talk) 22:28, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
it is an improvement to some extent, but a selective reading of sources on the other. i've raised three main points but i feel we will have to discuss them individually as we are doing with other contenteous issues. btw, since when do we write down whole paragraphs for each reference in the article's body? JaakobouChalk Talk 23:25, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
I find your recent edits to the lede unhelpful.
"Israel attacked the camp using infantry, tanks, combat helicopters, and armored bulldozers" -> "Israel initially entered the densely populated urban battlefield with infantry and tanks, supported by combat helicopters, and after 13 soldiers died at a deadly ambush, utilized armored bulldozers".
I do not see the rationale for changing "attacked" to "initially entered"; we might as well say that multiple Arab armies "initially entered" Israel in 1948. An attack is an attack, the word does not imply that Israel deliberately targeted civilians, or indeed imply much of anything beyond the fact that Israel initiated a military operation to seize the camp. Furthermore, it is not clear that tanks "initially entered" the camp, or entered at any point — the sources seem to indicate that they were used for fire-support only. The term "densely populated urban battlefield" is highly prejudicial as well as OR#SYN; and the camp was obviously not an "urban battlefield" until the IDF attacked "initially entered" it. "Densely populated" is irrelevant and probably untrue based on reports that most residents evacuated prior to the assault. Finally, this edit is just bad prose. It's been made into a run-on sentence, it utilizes the word "utilize" which is just a pretentious version of "use", and it describes "die[ing] in a deadly ambush" — can one die in a non-deadly ambush? Do we describe "deadly infantry and deadly tanks, supported by deadly combat helicopters?"
"ultimately razing around 10% of the camp" -> "resulting in the destruction of around 10% of the widely rigged with explosives camp area."
Prejudicial OR#SYN, sources all say "camp" without any qualifiers about explosives or a specific area. Misleading, because it seems to imply 10% of some specific area rather than 10% of the entire camp. Again, this is an attempt to introduce Israeli POV into a previously neutral sentence. It would be inappropriate to say "10% of the homes of Palestinian families driven out of Israel by Zionist terror in 1947-48", and it is inappropriate to make this claim about explosives.
"Journalists and International groups were banned by the IDF from entering the camp during the fighting, yet many of them reported" has been modified with the word "continuously" which I do not understand at all. The word desired is probably "continually" but again, this is prejudicial OR#SYN designed to emphasize Israeli POV. I realize that the term is used in the Azure magazine source, but this is an editorial opinion piece, and its POV statements should not be introduced directly into the article without attribution. There is also a grave problem with the use of "yet" which predates this edit; this in fact directly contradicts the given IDF sources which describe the reports as a natural consequence of the restrictions.
"These allegations were aired widely in the Arab world, British and European media," -> "These allegations were aired widely in the Arab world and European media (most prominently in the British media)"
No real reason for this edit; it's common in many contexts to exclude Britain from Europe. In any case, simply changing "and European" to "and other European" would do the job without scrambling up the readability and flow.
So I'm reverting it, which is unfortunate; I don't like to revert good faith edits. Eleland 12:52, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
I'm glad to see that all differences have been bridged in the past days, and that discussion is now limited to flowers and such:
  • I don't believe the analogy holds, as those armies made war on the state itself, not merely on certain elements within it. That said, if we all agree that the "attack" was not aimed at the entire camp, but only at the militants, then why say anything else? I'll try my hand at an alternative wording, but agree with the basic objection to saying 'the camp was attacked'.
  • I agree that the sources point to the use of tanks being limited, so perhaps we can come up with another wording that reflects that. Likewise, the use of attack helicopters was also limited, seemingly concurrent with the bulldozers and change of tactics.
  • I agree that we can find better phrasing than "urban battlefield", and should ease up on the 'deadly's
  • I'm not quite sure what the issue with "continually" is, but we can phrase that differently as well, though regarding the role of the reports, we previously discussed how we must avoid creating a causality in the clause
  • While I recall at least one of the references explicitly blaming part of the destruction on the Palestinian bombs, I've used a milder phrasing while I search for the exact wording, as the bulldozers uncontroversially played a significant role.
The lead has generally grown far to large in the last week, and so I've tried to integrate some of the more succinct phrasing present previously, while moving some of the new detail and referencing to the appropriate sections. We must all keep in mind that the lead should be short summary of the rest of the entry, and not engage in extensive details, or of course introduce new information or sourcing not found in the body. TewfikTalk 06:39, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

reply by jaakobou due to Eleland full revert[23]:

(1) "Israel attacked the camp using..." -> "Israel initially entered the densely populated urban battlefield with..." : (1.1) the change does not imply anything, same as with "attacked", it is an NPOV statement on how the IDF approached the battle. (1.2) i do believe many of the sources on the article cite that tanks were imobilized to the came and some moved through the streets... anyways, i don't mind if we replaced the word "entered" with "approached" however, i'm sure you would have found it as POV as some other options that i would contest also. (1.3) i used the "azure" ref for the notation that it was indeed a densly populated battle field even before the IDF went in - what part of "hundreds of armed Palestinians who had taken up positions there" and "densely populated urban area filled with hidden explosives." and "few places are less hospitable to an invading army than a densely populated urban battlefield"[24] did you miss in the source you added to the article's intro?[25]
(2) i disagree with how you read into the 10% issue, and i note you that it's 10% of the camp, but only about 1% (or less) of the entire city.
(3) are you really reverting because i used the word 'utilize' instead of 'use' or is it maybe because you havn't read the sources fully ?

- JaakobouChalk Talk 13:41, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

User:Jaakobou, you must be aware that there was no battleground until Israel surrounded and attacked the camp. Furthermore, "attack" is the word that RS use to describe what happened. The article has been filled with quite blatant POV - and you've still failed to correct the problems in the lead that your very own new section so elegantly exposed. How about editing this article to policy now you better understand what's intended? PalestineRemembered 20:40, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
i'm well aware of your personal POV and that you haven't bothered to inspect the edit. considering our history on this article, you've been issued a notice regarding the problems of your recent revert. JaakobouChalk Talk 21:32, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
Jaakobou, please do not describe content dispute edits as "vandalism", as you did in your edit summary. Editors with "personal POVs" are not discouraged from editing Wikipedia. Furthermore, you have not addressed these issues substantively. I realize that Azure magazine article used terms substantially equivalent to "densely populated urban battleground"; however we do not cherry-pick POV terms and use them unattributed in this manner. Nobody is disputing that Jenin camp was densely populated (though perhaps not at the time of the incursion) or that it became an urban battleground; we are contesting the use and placement of these terms as prejudicial and POV. If an analogy helps, at least one eminently reliable observer described the destruction in Jenin as "horrific beyond belief", but it would be inappropriate to use such a statement unattributed in Wikipedia-voice, since it is not NPOV. Eleland 21:53, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
User:Eleland, i've explained my notation on this edit to PR and to frank, i don't think you should continue encouraging him. to the issue, i find your rational of "we do not cherry-pick POV terms and use them unattributed" inconsistent with your recent activity of insisting on material when it fits your POV and request it's removal when it does not... should i remind you of the 10% debate? in short, the sources clearly back the edit and i feel your reason for removing the fact that it was a battleground from the intro on the count that stating this fact (which you don't contest and is backed up by the sources) is POV, disturbing. JaakobouChalk Talk 22:23, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
Your example is confusing, since I sourced the 10% claim to Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Gideon Meier and a right-wing pro-Israel American newspaper. That's virtually the direct opposite of my own POV. And I don't know why you believe that "reminding" me about that debate should somehow shame me; I do not believe that I made any editorial errors. Moving on to the current issue, it is often the case that reliable sources use a variety of terms to describe an event, and Wikipedia editors must rely on judgement and consensus to decide where and how to use which terms. From "Fairness of Tone" section of WP:NPOV, "Even when a topic is presented in terms of facts rather than opinion, an article can still radiate an implied stance through either selection of which facts to present, or more subtly their organization." I believe that is the most salient problem, both with the narrow issue in question and with the entire article. Describing a community in which people live, work, raise their children, etc as a "densely populated urban battleground" in such a prominent fashion is a very clear example. If it helps, try and imagine how you would feel about an article opening with, "The 2009 Jaffa martyrdom operation was a successful attack on a city once occupied by Palestinians who were forced into the sea by Zionist terrorists." That would be verifiably true but oh-so-NPOV. The same standards apply here. Eleland 13:09, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
i'll explain:
if you phrase the sentence in conflict with the sources (who say there was 10% damage without placing direct blame[26],[27]) to say that the IDF razed 10 percent, and ignore this issue when i note you about it. you cannot claim impunity when you later revert my changes that are all based on the words used by references that you added to the intro.
note: if you want to discuss the issues properly, i suggest you start proper subsections, but to be frank, an area is clearly a battle field from the moment militants embed it with explosives and i'm surprised you're trying to make it seem otherwise. JaakobouChalk Talk 21:26, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
Washington Times: The destruction, pictured graphically on television, appeared linked to Israeli bulldozing of the houses from which the remnant of the resistance

forces were firing. In fact, it covers the size of a large football field and constitutes only about 10 percent of the housing in the camp, and a far smaller proportion of the housing in the city, which was largely left untouched by the Israeli incursion.

ZAHN: And no doubt, you know that when people look at these pictures of the destruction in Jenin, there are some who believe clearly, they say, that the Israelis went too far. Justify this morning what people are looking at here. When they hear reports that offices were systematically destroyed and homes bulldozed over.


MEIR: Look, Paula, I myself went to Jenin. A week ago I was in Jenin and I saw that the devastation out of this first battle was only at 10 percent of the camp.
Note that Meir does not contradict the bulldozer claim, or make any counter-claim that explosives destroyed the houses.
HRW (see refs) says that "More than one hundred of the 140 completely destroyed buildings were in Hawashin district. In contrast to other parts of the camp where bulldozers were used to widen streets, the IDF razed the entire Hawashin district." Amnesty (whose website is experiencing hiccups right now, use Google cache) says "The IDF demolished Palestinian homes in Jenin refugee camp from the beginning of their offensive though, as testimonies and aerial photos show, the razing of the Hawashin quarter took place mostly after 11 April ... the evidence strongly suggests that the fighting had already stopped when most of the demolition of houses took place.
Saying bulldozers "contributed to the destruction of around 10% of the camp" is pretty lame; I recently saw "Jenin Jenin" and I guess we could say that Mohammed Bakri "contributed to the destruction of around 10% of the camp" in the scene where he knocks some glass out of a window. I devoted considerable effort to an impeccably referenced lede, and yet some have shown little compunction in making major factual alterations while using the same citations. For instance, the lede says "The Israeli force consisted primarily of infantry supported by armoured vehicles and ultimately employed attack helicopters and armoured bulldozers as their casualties mounted,[6][7][8]" but NONE of the references say that; editors have not explained where they got these statements, if indeed they got them anywhere.
Furthermore, I realize that my previous inclusion of selected quotations in the "references" section was slightly non-standard, however, the sources are so large and complex, and the need for rigorous factual accuracy is so clearly not met here, that I believe the quotations vastly improve verifiability. All of this article's manifold problems lead back to the introduction of unattributed statements, and vaguely attributed statements for reasons of POV. Eleland 22:15, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
looks to me like you're still doing 1+1=2 and only looking at the sources that please your statements and rejecting the ones that don't. p.s. appeared linked to Israeli bulldozing is not a n investigation that says israel is responsible to all the destruction, it's a mere note by a reporter. btw, if you've already seen the "Jenin, Jenin" pseudo documentary... you HAVE to watch the pierre rehov counter film "the road to jenin". JaakobouChalk Talk 23:59, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
This article continues to be a disgrace, with huge amounts of relevant information from excellent sources edit-warred out of it. Quibbling over whether the IDF was or was not responsible for the destruction of large areas of the Jenin camp is just another blatant example of this behaviour.
I am astounded to see User:Jaakobou announce to everyone at the CSN discussion on proven sockmaster and (generally agreed) determined edit-warrior User:Isarig that he (Jaakobou) was "trying to promote the article". He tells people that Isarig's edits "were on the same level" as those of myself and User:Eleland, apparently oblivious to the problems that the edit-warring have caused. PalestineRemembered 11:59, 28 August 2007 (UTC) I'm not sure if this is a personal attack on anyone, but I'm striking it through in case anyone was/is offended by it. PalestineRemembered 13:40, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
Eleland, I didn't understand your first comment at all; I'm not sure where I was trying to "shame" you, but a good portion of the comment is arguing against something that I explicitly agreed with you about on Talk, and which I changed based on your previous objection... As far as your second comment, the passage saying "linked" seems to me to confirm my choice of words. I haven't had a chance to search out the reference that discusses the role of Palestinian munitions in the destruction, but the interview that you present is hardly an Israeli declaration that the bulldozers were the only significant factor. Regarding the rest, as you say above, the tanks were only used for fire-support, as made clear in the sources which you have presented: Moreover, the tanks that were finally introduced into the battle were primarily used as armed bases for machine guns, as the tanks “were not allowed to use their main gun for fear of uncontrolled damage.”[28] Perhaps we can find some other method of expressing this nuance, but I think you would agree that an unqualified statement in the lead that "tanks" were used has a great potential to mislead. While I tried to preserve many of the references you used, if you feel that more of them should be included, by all means reinstate them. My primary concern was that the lead had again become far too large and detailed. TewfikTalk 08:55, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure whether tanks fired their main gun or not in this case, but even if they were only used as mobile pill-boxes, it's correct (and easily understood) to say "tanks were used". In the meantime, we have the RS's saying helicopters were "swarming" and their bullets "falling like" rain. That's what belong in the article, along with clips from the bulldozer driver who described how he carried out the destruction. Jaakobou even wrote that last bit up (if very badly) and put it in - it's absurd it's not in there. PalestineRemembered 18:41, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

POV changes to Amnesty International report

The citation for the Amnesty International report at http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGMDE151432002?open&of=ENG-PSE has been changed from the correct title:

"Israel and the Occupied Territories Shielded from scrutiny: IDF violations in Jenin and Nablus"

to the more innocuous:

"Amnesty International report on Jenin & Nablus"

The correct list of AI's conclusions was altered by removing or changing the following:

  • Unlawful killings (removed entirely)
  • Failure to ensure medical or humanitarian relief (changed to 'inconsistent access to external relief and medical agencies')
  • Demolition of houses and property (removed entirely)
  • Cutting water and electricity supplies (changed to 'damage to electric and water grids')
  • Torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment in arbitrary detention (removed entirely)
  • The use of Palestinians for military operations or as "human shields" (changed to 'use of human shields')

In addition, the following text in the first paragraph:

"research included reviewing Israeli High Court cases and examining medical records, statements, and video documentation. Delegates conducted numerous interviews. Testimony and other evidence were cross-checked for accuracy"

is exactly repeated in the third paragraph for no apparent reason.

The full text of AI's conclusions, located at http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGMDE151432002?open&of=ENG-PSE is as follows: [Excessively long excerpt removed per WP:NONFREE. Please read at the source page instead. nadav (talk) 21:48, 25 August 2007 (UTC)] Blindjustice 17:18, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

that's a pretty long statement you've made there. instead of such a long copy-pasting, could you please keep your points short about the changes you're interested in achieving? JaakobouChalk Talk 20:08, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

My point is that the correct title for Amnesty International's report is omitted, and that a number of AI's conclusions are omitted or altered to make the report seem more favorable to the Israeli point of view. Also omitted is the fact that AI concluded that war crimes were committed.

Also, the exact same wording in part of paragraph 1 for this section is repeated in paragraph 3. Is there some reason for this? Blindjustice 01:19, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

The correct title should be used, but I suggest we do so using a citation template. Also, isn't that particular source also cited in the lead? nadav (talk) 01:26, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
We've had just this kind of discussion several times already. Most notably (to my mind), we discussed what should and should not be in the lead. The changes necessary there to bring the article back into line with policy have still not been made. A succession of thoughtful, careful contributors have disappeared from this article as it's been brought home to them that policy may not apply in this area, and in this article in particular. Perhaps ArbCom can be involved and decide whether there are red-lines in the project or not. PalestineRemembered 07:50, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Unless somebody objects, I intend to change the AI section to:

1) remove redundant wording present in paragraph 1 which is repeated paragraph 3,

2) as per nadav, I will include the correct title of AI's report in a citation template. nadav, I could not find AI specifically cited in the lead, maybe it was there once but subsequently removed. There is mention of generic human rights organizationsDoes anybody think it should be cited there?

3) include the full list of AI's conclusions:

  • Unlawful killings (currently omitted)
  • Failure to ensure medical or humanitarian relief (currently modified)
  • Demolition of houses and property (currently omitted)
  • Cutting water and electricity supplies (currently modified)
  • Torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment in arbitrary detention (currently omitted)
  • The use of Palestinians for military operations or as "human shields" (currently modified)

4) include the fact that AI believes war crimes were committed during the battle, which is currently omitted from the AI section. Blindjustice 07:41, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

comment - i don't mind these changes as long as it's written in a paragraph and not as a shopping list and as long as it's written properly (citations and NPOV). while you're at it though, i request you also insert the proper name of the Camera article. JaakobouChalk Talk 07:50, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

  • I do not know what Camera article you are referring to. Blindjustice 21:04, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
    • The article in question is entitled "A Study in Palestinian Duplicity and Media Indifference" - and contains such gems as "despite copious evidence of their blatant lying ... refuting their fictitious 'massacre'". Needless to say, we should never be using such very poor material in the encyclopedia, it's clearly not an acceptable RS. (But it's further proof that the "No Massacre" thesis is a "Minor View"!) PalestineRemembered 11:53, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
      • note: the subject matter of Camera has been discussed throughly on this thread, and the problems have been resolved by a serious inspection into the April 6 and April 7 queries. p.s. i totally support the sources statement/allegation that there were fictitious and possibly careless ("blatant lying") claims.
      • note2: i don't see the connection to "minor view" and don't think it's of any importance to the Amnesti article naming discussion. JaakobouChalk Talk 12:40, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
        • The discussions of CAMERA's reliability focused only on whether they could be reliable for what is printed in other sources. This section is about not doctoring the Amnesty report; please don't link that problem to the unrelated question of how much we should foreground a partisan op-ed.--G-Dett 15:15, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
          • i and others have considered Amnesty as partisan also (on behalf of what they perceive as innocent and honest civilians) and i explained my view that this partisan "Israel and the Occupied Territories Shielded from scrutiny" title of the amnesty article (1. Jenin was under full PA jurisdiction, 2. how about a "Palestinian terrorists shielded from scrutiny" article.. does one exist?) can be included into their report if the camera partisan title is included also. either both POVs are presented or we leave both out. should we start a new subsection about if people believe amnesty to be an advocacy group or should i just refer you to previous talk? JaakobouChalk Talk 20:50, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Western media accept "massacre"

I've found proof in a very pro-Israel source[29] of something rather obvious - most of the world knows it as "The Jenin massacre". Quoted here are one Israeli reporter (but in a British newspaper), 2 US papers, 1 blog and 3 UPI stories.

Note the dates - the fighting stopped around 10th/11th April, siege ended 16th or 18th April, each of these reports are several weeks later. So this is not a case of the world's press being misled while Israel kept them away, this is their considered response after the event.

You need to visit that link on the "windsofchange.net" site to get the full flavour, but here are parts of it:

"Back to Jenin" (Ze'ev Schiff, Haaretz, 2002/07/17) - "None has since retracted the mendacious claims nor tried to find out how they were misled."

[www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/687911/posts "How Europe's media lost out"] (Martin Sieff, UPI, 2002/05/22) - ... The most hysterical and inaccurate accounts and the wildest, unsubstantiated claims came not while the international media was barred from Jenin but after it was allowed in. (not a single documented fact in here - the nearest is the unreferenced "even the PA itself revised its own official figure for Palestinans killed in the fierce fighting down to only 56.", which contradicts the named Palestinian minister above).

Ummm, not sure how to break this to you, buit all your quotes are pointing out how "massacre" stories are wildly distored and inaccurate. Is anyone else here noticing this? --Steve, Sm8900 15:55, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

"Analysis: Why Europeans bought Jenin myth" (Martin Sieff, UPI, 2002/05/21) - "Most of the major press and broadcasting outlets in Western Europe uncritically gobbled up the Jenin Massacre Myth with self-indulgent abandon. ... entire echelons of editors and executives in these organizations were willing to accept uncritically the fierce unsubstantiated and hysterical reports coming out of their correspondents in Jenin.

"Part One: Documenting the Myth" (Martin Sieff, UPI, 2002/05/20) - ... the Western European media fell for the "Massacre Myth" in Jenin in a big way. ... What made these unreliable and misleading reports all the more remarkable was that many of the worst of them emerged in the most respected and influential organizations in the British media. The British Broadcasting Corporation and three of the four so-called "quality" daily newspapers - The Times, The Independent and The Guardian - fell for the "Massacre Myth" hook, line and sinker.

"Jeningrad - What the British media said" (Tom Gross, National Review, 2002/05/13) - "The British media was particularly emotive in its reporting. They devoted page upon page, day after day, to tales of mass murders, common graves, summary executions, and war crimes. Israel was invariably compared to the Nazis, to al Qaeda, and to the Taliban.

"How Jenin battle became a 'massacre'" (Sharon Sadeh, The Guardian, 2002/05/08) - ... the British papers, almost unanimously, presented it from the outset as a "massacre" or at least as an intentional "war crime" of the worst kind ... The Independent, the Guardian and the Times, in particular, were quick to denounce Israel ... Selective use of details or information and occasional reliance on unsubstantiated accounts inflict considerable damage on the reputation of the entire British press, and more importantly, do a disservice to its readers." (ie gets right of reply in the Guardian and uses it to grumble that consensus is against him).

this is baloney. PalestineRemembered, are you not noticing that most of your articles use the word "massacre" in an ironic or disputive way? Have you read your own quotes? What about the following quote, above? "The British Broadcasting Corporation and three of the four so-called "quality" daily newspapers - The Times, The Independent and The Guardian - fell for the "Massacre Myth" hook, line and sinker.--Steve, Sm8900 15:41, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

"The Independent's 'reporting'" (Andrew Sullivan, andrewsullivan.com, 2002/05/06) - the Independent made matters even still worse by uncritically reprinting such stories as news." (See also: "Amid the ruins of Jenin, the grisly evidence of a war crime" (Phil Reeves, Independent, 2002/04/16) and as "Once upon a time in Jenin" (Phil Reeves, Independent, 2002/04/25))

(Betsy Pisik, The Washington Times, 2002/05/04) "reports that a massacre did not occur have received scant attention in the Western news media." PalestineRemembered 14:44, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Supporters of Israel cannot have it both ways.
1) Verifiable sources say Jenin was not a massacre (though with the most vestigial evidence possible, contradicted by everything else, and from highly partisan sources, so we probably shouldn't use them).
2) Simultaneously, the same sources tell us that "everybody else ignored these denials".
We could cooperate on this if you were agreeable - would you choose to do a section on the Israeli newspaper (interview with the bulldozer driver) or include the rest of the world's newspapers (who never doubted that this was an atrocity)? PalestineRemembered 18:44, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
i'm afraid i don't follow how the kurdi bear story fits in with whatever you're trying to present here. i also don't understand why your point needs the support of a phrasing such as "supporters of israel...".
to the subject matter, i suggest you pay attention to the difference between all the reports during and imediately after the battle (note the date of publication) which basically repeated the allegations without proper validation of sources (some allowed their own imaginations to run wild, eps. in the british media) and how the media treated this story once UN and qadoura mousa gave the death toll of 52-56. because of this change of descriptions we have both the current title and the "previously known as" title in the intro. JaakobouChalk Talk 18:57, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
The UN gave the figure of deaths as "at least 52", but likely not as much as 500. The PA gave the number of deaths as 375 (for incursions all over the West Bank, but Jenin by far the worst affected).
If you read those reports (we have the British ones in full, but only small sections of the US ones ... strange, huh?) you'd realise they tell us that the British media were even more convinced there'd been atrocities and mass deaths once they'd got into the camp. PalestineRemembered 19:18, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Help! Can someone please explain to PalestineRemmebered that all of these quotes are saying that the newspapers's accounts of a "massacre" were totally unfounded? We seem to be hitting a block here.

So PalestineRemembered, you think these quotes are referring to the denials as being without credibility, rather than the accounts of a "massacre"? Isuggest you re-read these quotes several times. i think you're missing the basic point with all of them. At this point, i dont'want you to rely only on my word. Can someone PLEASE add their comments on what these quotes mean?--Steve, Sm8900 19:02, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not disputing that sections of the US and Israeli press claim that there was no massacre.
But the same sources tell us, in detail, that the rest of the world never reported their denials (in fact, in at least some cases, the claims of atrocity and "large numbers of deaths" became more vociferous once the observers got in).
In line with NPOV, that makes "Massacre" the major view, and "No massacre" a minority view. PalestineRemembered 19:11, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

PR, i think you're missing the point i was making. these articles are talking about the totally cynical way, preferring hype to facts, the press treated the event before qadoura mousa released his statement. if you follow the general reporting after the number was released, they were taking a step back from the initial figurative speech massacre reports. pay notice to how differently news sources reported the event in retrospect (sample - BBC: The battle of Jenin sparked international outcry.) compared to how they reported it before. JaakobouChalk Talk 00:24, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Read the references again. The Western media goes into detail on what they saw and what witnesses reported, and they called it an atrocity. (I suspect 90% of the US media did the same).
Nothing has ever been produced to suggest that the Western media withdrew the charges of atrocity (and only limited evidence they withdrew on the word "massacre", which unfortunately has two meanings). All the evidence I've seen suggests they carried on saying "war-crimes".
Now we discover, right from the sources quoted to support "No Massacre", that pro-Israeli denial never had any currency anywhere other than in (likely small) portions of the US press. Furthermore, the accusations against Israel became still more strident once the observers had gone in.
In other words, "major view" is "Massacre, atrocity, war-crimes", and "No massacre" is a minor view. Likely so minor it should be reduced to a foot-note. PalestineRemembered 11:30, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
Um, you're basing that statement that the "major view"(sic) can be supported using these references? These references are debunking the massacre claims; they are NOT supporting them. You're trying to use evidence that says "there was false reporting of a massacre in Jenin" to say "there was a massacre in Jenin". I'm not sure if english is your first language, but honestly, you quoted them stating that the massacre did not happen in your initial post. Kyaa the Catlord 11:37, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
Exactly. Thanks for your great comment, Kyaa. --Steve, Sm8900 13:22, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
Defenders of Israel cannot have it both ways.
1) Verifiable sources say Jenin "was not a massacre" (though their evidence is paltry and unconvincing - and it comes from angry, partisan sources as almost certainly don't belong in our references).
2) Simultaneously, the same sources tell us that "all the other Western media ignored these denials and carried on calling it an atrocity/massacre" (especially once they'd really had a chance to look).
So we have it from the horse's mouth - the Western media ignored the denials, and "Atrocity/massacre" is the "major view".
(Presently I might delve a bit deeper - I'll probably find that the US media never withdrew the allegations of atrocity either - but they were bullied into silence rather quickly, unlike the media everywhere else). PalestineRemembered 16:47, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
dude, you;re exhausting me. try reading your own quotes and then we can talk. at this point, just ton respond seriously, i don't feel we can act on your suggestion, unless some more editors speak up that they would like to uphold it. And if you guys post in support without addressing the obvious and glaring problem in the meaning of these quotes vs. what PR says they are, I'll know this duscssion cannot accomplish anything with clarity. thanks. --Steve, Sm8900 17:11, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Steve asked me to comment. Unfortunately, I don't have time to enter much into this discussion now. I did look at this Talk section and, briefly, the article. I can toss out some quick suggestions to you here but no guarantee it'll be helpful.

  • (#1) Steve, can you dispassionately & concisely reflect back PalestineRemembered's (PR) understanding of the sources? (He had to repeat himself presumably because you didn't seem to acknowledge his points.) If so, run it by him, to check if you understand his perspective adequately. Perhaps PR can do the same for you, if he's willing, and then you can both clarify more specific points of agreement and disagreement about how to utilize the sources.
  • (#2) I wasn't clear about how PR proposes to use his understanding of the sources to edit the article. Is PR trying to modify the section on body counts? Or does PR accept the body counts section, and he is focusing on the "allegations of massacre" section? Perhaps you could both focus (on the Talk page) on PR's proposed edits based on his reading of the sources.
  • (#3) From a theoretical standpoint (mine), PR seems to be pursuing an interesting line of reasoning. Can the verified absence of something -- i.e., no retraction or ignoring a denial (did I get this right PR?) -- itself be considered a source? Specifically, can a verified absence determine what is the mainstream point-of-view? Personally, I don't quite see how this could alter the body count data, but I'm not so sure about what this tells us about the usage of the term "massacre" in media discourse on Jenin. After all, who's to say whether "massacre" can refer to the killing of 5 or 50 or 500?
  • (#4) On the other hand, an encyclopedia needs to make judgment calls about the relative merits and reliability of competing sources. Doesn't the verified absence of a retraction, or of ignoring a denial, strongly undermine the reliability of a source? If so, then the cited sources (British, US, UPI) seem more reliable. Conversely, the remaining media that ignore new data would seem quite flawed. If so, we need to keep in mind that Wikipedia gauges the major/mainstream NPOV view based on the most reliable sources, even if there are larger number of less reliable sources offering a different view. Right?

Hope this is helpful, Steve (or others). Anyway, please accept it as well-intentioned. Thanks! HG | Talk 18:52, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

PS Since drafting the above comment, PalestineRemembered, you expressed concern about my being drawn into the discussion. If you feel the same way after reading this, please let me know. I would like to avoid being an involved party to any arbitration of this article. HG | Talk 18:52, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
Hi. thanks. errr, actually though, I hadn't quite expected all that. thanks though for all your hard work and heartlfelt efforts, as usual. i think i'd prefer to leave things alone for now. thanks. --Steve, Sm8900 19:08, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
Ok. An afterthought. PR states: "Nothing has ever been produced to suggest that the Western media withdrew the charges of atrocity (and only limited evidence they withdrew on the word "massacre", which unfortunately has two meanings). All the evidence I've seen suggests they carried on saying "war-crimes"." This seems to be a key point for PR and subject to further source verification, regardless of how PR's argument-by-absence (#3) unfolds. HG | Talk 19:16, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
Hello, User:HG, welcome along. The discussion about this article is very different from what we discussed before because this article itself is so terrible. (I think the name of this article is desperately misleading too, much worse than AoIA, but that's near the bottom of my concerns).
(#1) Question is to Steve.
(#2) HG says -> I wasn't clear about how PR proposes to use his understanding of the sources to edit the article. PR says -> I'm not very clear how to improve this article either, because the layout is so awful, and my one attempt to correct it was summararily reverted weeks ago. I'd scrap the "body-count" section, and scrap "the allegations of massacre" section. I'd completely re-write the lead (to match how other battles are treated), then have the "story of the event" in some kind of NPOV fashion (matching other battles), follow it with the investigations (UN with EU & PA, Amnesty, HRW, IDF, Jenin Investigation, Time Magazine - in that order).
(#2b) I am extremely dubious about the body-count, the alleged "PA admits 56" story comes from angry sources and doesn't match what the PA told the UN 3 weeks afterwards (c. 375 for the whole of the West Bank). However, I can see this is one of the cases I'd likely be forced to let in material that I believe does not add up.
(#3) HG -> Can the verified absence of something -- i.e., no retraction or ignoring a denial (did I get this right PR?). PR -> No - the sources collected by "windsofchange.com" tell us that "all" other sources (they concentrate on the British media, but they refer to "the Western media", everyone outside the US and Israel) ignored the "No massacre" thesis and continued to say there had been a massacre (or at least, major atrocities). Which makes the "Massacre/atrocity" theme the "Major View". It's a slam-dunk case, this pro-Israeli source tells us, in some fair detail, that the "No massacre thesis" is very widely rejected.
You say, "No" as if I didn't hear you right when I talked about an absence or an ignoring. But then you again point out how the windsofchange sources report how Western media "ignored the 'No massacre' thesis." So I'm still confused, since it still sounds like your inference hinges on windsofchange telling us what was ignored, which I consider (my #3) an interesting but speculative approach on your part. .... Maybe this will help clarify. The encyclopedia aims to gather knowledge, focusing on the major view of what is verifiably known. You want to infer from windsofchange that we know that "the massacre thesis" is the major view. However, instead, one may infer from windsofchange sources that much of the Western media is not reporting what is known, but rather reporting "the uninformed massacre thesis." I realize you don't want to add 'uninformed' as a qualifier, but isn't that the point of the sources you've quoted? HG | Talk 01:54, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
(#3b) Massacre is irrelevant, it's a red-herring thrown up by the sources that wish to persuade us "There was no massacre". The Boston massacre was 5 people dead, Kent State was 4. There is a secondary meaning of massacre which means "a group of people machine-gunned to death", and it's universally agreed that that didn't happen in Jenin - but that doesn't mean that it wasn't a massacre, or considered a massacre (the last being what matters in this case - our article has to be written around the "Major View").
(#4) HG -> Doesn't the verified absence of a retraction, or of ignoring a denial, strongly undermine the reliability of a source? PR -> You're starting to lose me. The Guardian gave "right of reply" to an Israeli journalist in London to write a column and tell us there was "No massacre". But our source states that the rest of the media were insistent there was "Atrocity/war-crime", and they became still more insistent once their journalists got into the came. Slam-dunk, these sources are teling us that "No massacre" has very little currency.
(#4b) HG-> If so, then the cited sources (British, US, UPI) seem more reliable. PR -> Not sure which sources you're talking about. Most of the sources from "windsofchange.com" are fundamentally quite unreliable. Only one of the UPI reports is available in full, and it's almost a complete polemic (the only "fact" in there is the highly dubious claim that the PA admit only 56 dead). There is the British paper, the Guardian, giving right of reply to the Haaretz journalist, then there are the cited Independent reports which are loud in their condemnation of Israel - and more so after they've got into the camp.
PR, I'm having trouble following you. On what grounds are you considering US and British newspapers or news services as "fundamentally quite unreliable"? So much of Wikipedia relies on these sources, I don't think you're assessment is going to find favor among wikipedians. Furthermore, if the sources aren't reliable, how can you justify using them for any kind of inference? HG | Talk 01:54, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
(#4c) HG -> Conversely, the remaining media that ignore new data would seem quite flawed. PR -> Verifiability not truth. There is no "new data" from any of the sources in "windsofchange.com". But there is new data from other souces, bodies continued to be found in the bulldozed rubble for almost 4 months (until early August). There were further intrusions by the IDF, in one of which Amnesty graphically describes 2 children killed by a tank shell (the body of one of them run over and over by a tank) - this when the curfew had supposedly been lifted for 2 hours. With conditions this unpleasant, we know why there was no careful count. One of the accounts (EU to the UN?) says that the bomb-disposal weren't allowed in for weeks, at least two more Palestinians were killed by accidental explosions.
By new data, I meant the quotes from which you inferred support for the "massacre thesis" as a major view.HG | Talk
(#4d) HG -> If so, we need to keep in mind that Wikipedia gauges the major/mainstream NPOV view based on the most reliable sources, even if there are larger number of less reliable sources offering a different view. Right? PR -> Correct. The Times magazine called their article "an investigation", but there's no evidence they did more than tour the camp and get everything from the IDF, it should come near to the end. We have good RS accounts from Western journalists who went in and provide detailed, graphic accounts of atrocities from eye-witnesses, as did Amnesty and HRW. "windsofchange.com"s sources jeer at these accounts, but then we've familiar with denial after all these years.
There's a lot, lot more I can add about material that ought to be in this case - eg the Kurdi Bear account. That's the most easy-reading snapshot of just what the "Battle of Jenin" was really about - and Jaakobou has specifically told us his only objection was that the English translation comes top-and-tailed with partisan statements. There's no question it was published in Hebrew by a major Israeli newspaper. So why's it not included in the article? Answer - it's been edit-warred out! As I said, really, really serious problems with this article. PalestineRemembered 21:30, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for your detailed reply, PalestineRemembered! Looks like my #1 and #2 suggestions might be useful. Following up on #2: Given your experience in trying to rewrite this disputed article, you might want to consider just writing a few sentences that you feel are merited by the windsofchange sources and see how it's received here in Talk. Less ambitious, more feasible. Your replies to my #3 and #4 indicate that I didn't understand you reasoning and, well, I still don't. I interspersed some feedback above w/your nicely outlined replies. Meanwhile, if you don't mind my saying so PR, you might want to consider that, if somebody like me (i.e., academically trained) is having trouble following your line of thought, you may need to articulate it more clearly for it to work in the encyclopedia. Anyway, it's good working with you albeit briefly on this topic. Thanks again, HG | Talk 01:54, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
This whole discussion seems somewhat unnecessary to me, as it all comes down to a single point. Do current, mainstream RS characterise this event as a massacre or not? If yes, then great, if not, also great. TewfikTalk 02:08, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Here's what I might diagnose at the heart of the dispute. An underlying premise (P1) of PalestineRemembered's analysis is that there is a systematic bias against Palestinians interests in U.S. and British news media. (Let's skip how one might deduce P1 from PR's words and reasoning.) Is there such a bias? Maybe. But here's where the rubber hits the road. Even if such media bias exists (= True), Wikipedia does not generally analyze sources based on such a bias. On the contrary, we presuppose (P2) that US and British newspapers and wire services as reliable for NPOV writing. There's a good reason for this -- our readers accept such mainstream sources as reliable for verifying knowledge. We are not in the business (yet) of trying to convince our readers otherwise. Perhaps it's a a paradoxical catch-22, but the premise of systematic media bias (P1) is a point-of-view (POV) that is not verifiable with mainstream sources. This dynamic is surely a bitter pill to swallow for those who feel P1 is true, since P1 implies that systematic bias unavoidably seeps into Wikipedia. Anyway, what's the result? In general, as I saw with Tiamut regarding Talk:Palestinian people, pro-Palestinian Users need to bear the burden of editing with the assumption (P2) that US and British media (etc) are reliably neutral sources. Specifically here, PR, I think you need to take the US/British sources as reliable overall, not just where they talk about what other Western media is ignoring. In other words, windsofchange sources are saying that the other Western media are not reliably reporting on Jenin. This doesn't turn other Western media into a major view in favor of the "massacre thesis" -- instead, windsofchange sources can merely verify that there are unsubstantiated (in the eyes of US/Brit sources) allegations of massacre that persistent elsewhere. I'm sorry that my reasoning doesn't happen to be more supportive of you position in this situation, PR, but please take it as a good faith effort to discern your view. Thanks for hearing me out. HG | Talk 11:18, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure on what basis you determine my position, I don't believe I've said anything on what you've called "P1" (or at least, not in this part of the discussion).
And we're not discussing P2, the working assumption that US/British media are generally reliable.
What I've done is to point out that, even the most POV sources (as compiled by windsofchange.com) admit that the "Not a massacre" thesis has been largely (perhaps almost entirely) ignored. Hence it is mysterious indeed that this article is *still* written from this disturbing POV. And astounding that people can remove the "Totally disputed tag" from this article as if there was consensus. PalestineRemembered 06:58, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
Looks like I may have made a mistaken assumption. Why are you say that these are "even the most POV sources"? Is it because of the publications (UPI, Wash Times, Ha'artez etc) or because of the authors? Also, you /we/ may need to distinguish between reporters and op-ed columnists. Below, G-Dett makes this distinction -- though G-Dett also seems to claim that Wash Times is systematically biases (P1). If you/G-Dett argue based on op-ed vs news reporter, that's plausible. If the argument relies on P1, I'm saying that doesn't work for Wikipedia (even were it a strong argument for original research). Do you see my approach to WP policy on sources? HG | Talk 14:28, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
Each of these articles appears to be long on opinion and short on facts (nearer op-ed that reportese). None of them are "major media", one is a blog, one is the "Israeli right of reply" by the Guardian. I'm not making a sweeping generalisation about general bias towards Israel (though that is strong, the BBC published the report they did on themselves, April 2006).
However, my argument has nothing to do with "P1". It's simply that these reports tell us that, even long after the event, the "No Massacre" thesis was ignored by most of the (British/Western/world) media. And I have a suspicion the tongue lashing was aimed at the British media in order not to do the same thing to the US media, which were little different. PalestineRemembered 18:28, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
I'll comprimise with a statement similar to "initial reports stated that there was a massacre, but after investigation the claims of massacre were found to be false and the early death counts were scaled back from the hundred to "at least 52" according to the United Nations statement." Yes, the reports were exagerrated initially and after the smoke cleared the actual numbers were much lower and, as both AI and HRW stated "there was no evidence of a massacre". You can continue to believe that there was one, but there was no evidence left behind. Does this mean that the refrigerated trucks you mentioned on HG's page drove them away? Maybe, but there is no RS provided to verify that particular conspiracy theory, so far. Kyaa the Catlord 13:04, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

PalestineRemembered even pro-Israel sources tell us that "Majority View" is "Atrocity/Massacre".

My position on this is very simple - we have a limited number of sources that would normally be considered RS putting forwards the "There was no massacre" thesis and the article is written entirely to reflect this "View" as if it were the "Majority View".

These reports (compiled and presented by the "windsofchange.com web-site) themselves tell us that the view they take is the "Minority View", they're not the Majority view.

  1. Haaretz - "None has since retracted the mendacious claims"
  2. UPI - "The most hysterical and inaccurate accounts ... not while the international media was barred from Jenin but after it was allowed in.
  3. UPI - "willing to accept uncritically the fierce unsubstantiated and hysterical reports coming out of their correspondents in Jenin.
  4. UPI - "British Broadcasting Corporation and three of the four so-called "quality" daily newspapers ... fell for the "Massacre Myth" hook, line and sinker". (Just one paragraph of this available to us).
  5. UPI - "devoted page upon page, day after day, to tales of mass murders, common graves, summary executions, and war crimes". (Just one paragraph of this report available to us).
  6. British Guardian (but in a commentary by Israeli) - "use of details or information and occasional reliance on unsubstantiated accounts - do a disservice to its readers."
  7. British Independent - "uncritically reprinting such stories as news". (Emphasises that this is *after* entering the camp and doing the regular journalism thing, talking to witnesses etc)

Lastly, and perhaps most damagingly, the Washington Times states - "reports that a massacre did not occur have received scant attention in the Western news media."

There are a number of other serious problems with these reports, and we have no indication that even mainstream US sources accept what they claim. I will have to come back on this point when I have more time.

All in all, there's no need to look any further, the "Majority View" is clearly stated (by these "pro-Israel sources") to be "Atrocity/massacre". This is what the article should be written to say, not the way it's currently written. There are huge problems of both fact and NPOV in the current article, and, at a minimum, it must be tagged as such.

This article and the associated Talk have been disfigured by nonsense of all kinds - my argument here exposes (I think) just the one that should be the very easiest for people to understand. PalestineRemembered 08:39, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

comment/explanation - "retraction" is a very dirty word in the world of journalism. they usually just change the titles and the subtext of the next articles about the same subject - haaretz and BBC have sinned in this many times before... and i've given you earlier a link to the BBC, which could not be mistaken as a pro-israeli source, article as an example... btw, haaretz isn't considered pro-israel either, but that's another story. i think you should put an emphasize on understanding the difference between reporting things on the back pages (i.e. "receive scant attention") and between holding a position that a massacre occurred. if you notice, there is no retraction in this report ("not a massacre/witnesses told stories of executions/Israel has valid point against UN mission") or in this one ("Palestinian militants put up fierce resistance/grocer Adnan Hassan, says his home rocketed by Apache gunship/Martyrs' capital") either but it is clear that the word massacre is not the message of the article anymore. the next reports are this ("UN condemns Israel's military action in Jenin/complex vote reflects concerns at failure to condemn suicide bombings") and this ("UN says no massacre in Jenin/Saeb Erekat rejects the UN report/Daniel Taub: report shows Palestinian claims, atrocity propaganda")... no retractions... just a different story. JaakobouChalk Talk 11:27, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
  1. Do you know what mendacious means? It means "false or untrue." In other words the source is calling the "massacre" a lie.
  2. UPI is saying that the press printed innaccurate accounts of a massacre. In other words, there was no massacre.
  3. UPI again states that the reports from Jenin were exaggerated and even goes as far as to claim "hysterical".
  4. UPI says everyone was buying the lies again.
  5. This one could go both ways, but again, its the UPI which has been repeatedly reporting on the inaccurate reporting of a massacre at Jenin.
  6. UPI is chastising the british press for, omg, printing false, unverified stories.
  7. Again, this time the Independent is saying that there was no massacre.

And finally, the Washington Post comments on the fact that noone is correcting themselves and that they SHOULD BE. What are you trying to accomplish PR? Have you switched sides and are now claiming there was no massacre? Cause that's what your "evidence" is saying. Kyaa the Catlord 11:41, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

The Washington Times, Kyaa, not the Washington Post. Dear me. The Washington Post is one of the great independent family-owned newspapers that, along with the New York Times (and the Los Angeles Times and the Wall Street Journal before their respective corporate buy-outs) set the gold standard of serious journalism in the United States. The Washington Times, on the other hand, is a controversial and very conservative broadsheet with a circulation one-seventh that of the Post. It was established by the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, the Korean businessman who describes himself as "humanity's Savior, Messiah, Returning Lord and True Parent," and who explained his journalistic brainchild as follows:

Fifteen years ago, when the world was adrift on the stormy waves of the Cold War, I established The Washington Times to fulfill God's desperate desire to save this world. Since that time, I have devoted myself to raising up The Washington Times, hoping that this blessed land of America would fulfill its world-wide mission to build a Heavenly nation. Meanwhile, I waged a lonely struggle, facing enormous obstacles and scorn as I dedicated my whole heart and energy to enable The Washington Times to grow as a righteous and responsible journalistic institution.

Ronald Reagan plugged the Washington Times saying it was his favorite newspaper, much as Dick Cheney would later plug Fox News and praise its unbiased reporting. The Columbia Journalism Review, on the other hand, drolly notes that "because of its history of a seemingly ideological approach to the news, the paper has always faced questions about its credibility."
We've seen this confusion once here already.[30] The fact that editors on this page continue to confuse the Times for the Post, or refer to them interchangeably, is very unsettling, especially when the very thing we're discussing is the range, balance, and above all the quality of our sourcing.
Now, PR's post also contains a misattribution, though a less serious or grotesque one than Kyaa and Isarig's. The quote allegedly from the Independent regarding "uncritically reprinting such stories as news" is actually a quote from the blog of (then) neoconservative blogger and fierce Independent-critic Andrew Sullivan. The Independent 's Middle-East correspondent Phil Reeves, on the other hand, talks about Israeli and pro-Israeli propaganda exploiting Palestinian propaganda for its own purposes – i.e., continued exaggeration of body counts and massacre allegations by Palestinian officials provided the perfect rhetorical opening for Israeli propagandists to wave off the whole "Jenin lie," to throw the baby out with the bathwater, to pretend that the whole story of Jenin is the story of massacre allegations that turned out to be false or exaggerated, rather than war crimes allegations that turned out to be true.
The POV problem with our article is that we've taken this same propagandistic angle as our starting point, as if it were a self-evident foundation on which to build a neutral and encyclopedic account of the siege of Jenin. It is not. And the point of PR's post, which has been misunderstood, is that the major, prestigious, reliable-source news outlets by and large did not treat the massacre allegations and their subsequent discrediting as the major story about Jenin. The various pundits he quotes (the Sullivan blog, a Haaretz journalist writing a guest op-ed for the Guardian, a Washington Times op-ed, and so on) are wringing their hands precisely because the main respectable news outlets did not frame and contextualize the siege of Jenin the way those pundits would have liked. Those pundits would be pleased with our Wikipedia article. But that doesn't, unfortunately, make it NPOV; quite the contrary.--G-Dett 17:57, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
Point not found. Regardless of who published it, his sources are all still saying precisely the opposite of what he's attempting to support. Kyaa the Catlord 02:04, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
Kyaa is correct. Kyaa, I'm still here and supporting the correct points you are making, just so we both can support each other, in addressing this issue. thanks. --Steve, Sm8900 02:26, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
Sorry not to be joining the group hug. Kyaa, the point you're missing may clarify if presented in your own words: PR's source "comments on the fact that no one is correcting themselves and that they SHOULD BE." Should be, but aren't. That is, the big massacre-allegation-massacre-retraction story that you, a number of partisan pundits, and our article in its current form are pushing as the central notable thing about the siege of Jenin, did not constitute the central notable thing about the siege of Jenin for many, if not most, of the mainstream reliable sources. PR's sources by and large attest to that, even if they see it as cause for complaint.--G-Dett 03:51, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
Hey, if you want to write the article as a simple description of the battle without any commentary, I'm all for that. We don't need any of the reactions from the partisan sources or human rights organizations or any other groups trying to push any POV or "emotional" rhetoric. No allegations of massacre, no "swarming helicopters", no allusions to mysterious, possibly mythological armored bulldozer drivers. I'm there. Cut it all down to the bare facts with no POV statements, no controversy coverage, no discussions of death counts. Just the straight facts with none of the drama. That would be very refreshing actually. Kyaa the Catlord 05:50, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
The very sources this article is written around state that their version of events is a "Minor View" eg "reports that a massacre did not occur have received scant attention in the Western news media." It's ludicrous to claim that this "Minor View" shouild be the basis of this article. PalestineRemembered 11:04, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
Kyaa, your post presents a false choice: either a) we present the Israeli propaganda version, which highlights and foregrounds the revised casualty estimates and discrediting of massacre claims as a means of obscuring the major war crimes which were alleged and confirmed; or b) we present a bare-bones "simple description of the battle," which you propose to magically piece together without the benefit of "partisan sources and human rights organizations." First of all, I hope it's clear why this is a false choice, but briefly: Jenin was significant for prominent, high-quality reliable sources for a number of reasons, and we should cover both the siege itself and its significance with those things in mind, and from a neutral point of view per WP:NPOV. Secondly, I hope it's clear why your notion of a simple description of the battle with no partisan sources or human-rights organizations among our sources is an impossibility. There were no journalists allowed in during the attack and siege, remember? The only first-hand accounts are from IDF soldiers and Palestinians, both presumably by definition partisan. Human-rights organizations, aren't partisan, except from the point of view of state propaganda, which likes to take an a la carte approach to their findings; and to equate them to groups like the ADL is a serious deception. They are the highest-quality possible sources for an article like this.--G-Dett 11:32, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
Did you seriously just claim that HRW and Amnesty International aren't partisan groups? Just checking. Kyaa the Catlord 12:43, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
Yes, of course. And so do you, and so do pro-Israel pundits – at least when HRW, Amnesty et al are discrediting massacre claims. When they are confirming allegations of war crimes by Israel, then of course they are labeled partisan by those who embrace other of their conclusions. This is absolutely natural, and absolutely consistent and predictable. When HRW and Amnesty publish their findings about Hezbollah's war crimes, or Saddam's mass graves, or Serbian atrocities in the Balkans, those become the standard statistics cited approvingly by U.S. officials; when HRW and Amnesty then publish their findings about human-rights violations in Guantanamo Bay or at the CIA's various "black sites" and detention centers, then those same officials ridicule their bias. And of course Saddam apologists and apologists for Serb atrocities and Arab despots and so on cite HRW and Amnesty in equal and opposite a la carte ways. This is par for the course, and representative of the basic vernacular of state propaganda – whether the state in question is a liberal democracy like the U.S. or Israel, or a dictatorship or a military junta or whatever. State officials who practice this rhetorical a-la-cartism are simply doing their jobs. Our job in writing an encyclopedia is different, however, as I would hope would be self-evident. HRW and Amnesty are the very best possible sources to cite in an encyclopedia article about human-rights violations. That they piss everyone off some of the time, and delight those same people at other times, is a very strong indication of their essential non-partisanship.
But perhaps there is some confusion about the very meaning of "partisan." I'm not claiming that HRW and Amnesty are uniformly beyond reproach, that their findings are G-d–like in their infallible accuracy. Some say, for example, that because their findings in a place like Jenin were compiled without the cooperation of the Israeli government, they were necessarily biased. Others point out that since HRW's donor base is disproportionately represented by wealthy American Jews, their findings will be skewed in the other direction in matters regarding Israel (this last was a point of contention after last summer's between Israel and Lebanon, when Kenneth Roth found himself under serious political pressure from parts of HRW's donor base). Such claims can be weighed and measured as the need arises, and they might even form the substance of an interesting Wikipedia article. But even if you find fault or allege bias in this or that set of their findings, it is absurd to argue that they are "partisan" organizations in the sense that the ADL – or for that matter, any number of "Justice for Palestine" organizations on the local or national level – are partisan. To carry on that way is to engage in a major semantic distortion, and to confuse the mandate of state propaganda or public-relations lobbying with the very different mandate of encyclopedia-writing.--G-Dett 14:36, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
These kind of sarcastic one-liners are unhelpful. I think the Wikipedia article on HRW says it: "anti-Western, anti-India, anti-China, and anti-Israel bias...accused of importing a Western agenda...assault on Hellenism" - in other words, accused of bias against essentially every country it reports on. Here's a simple question. If HRW and Amnesty are partisan groups, who are the non-partisan human rights groups? Or the human rights groups which are partisans of other ideologies? I must say that once you eliminate those outlets the Israeli-American right considers "biased" (like, the entire European press, large chunks of even the Israeli press, all international organizations) you're left with a rather dismal selection of dubious accounts from USA Today, TIME magazine, and the like. And the article we have right now strays from even those inferior sources to make statements that aren't even found in them. Eleland 14:13, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
For the record, I don't think Kyaa's post was overly sarcastic, if anything just a little naïve. Anyway I have no opposition to a little sarcasm on talk pages for articles like this; where there are serious and deep ideological tensions about a certain subject, a little banter can help defuse things.--G-Dett 14:41, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
G-Dett, i disgree with your previous posts earlier. the fact that the cited articles say that the retractions were glossed over, or insufficiently covered by major media outlets, doe not mean those major media outlets were doubting the retractions or disputing the retractions in any way. this seems a bit excessive. you can't reserach historical events by quoting analyses of media coverage; especially when the media coverage they analyze do not contain any statements of fact, but in fact the main focus is the media's failure to report a retraction of non-factual allegations. your argument is convoluted, counter-intuitive, and in my opinion does run counter to the facts. I also agree with Kyaa; let's report the facts, and not wrange over which hyperbole or drama to use. --Steve, Sm8900 18:26, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
Sm8900, I didn't say that major media outlets doubted the retractions, and I certainly don't doubt the retractions (remember, I am not the one challenging the credibility of major international human-rights organizations – that's Kyaa). My point was that major media outlets did not appear to have emphasized those retractions as the central notable thing about Jenin. The pundits PR cited, however, did just that, and they lament that the major media did not follow their lead in this. The NPOV problem with our article is that we do follow the lead of partisan pundits in this, instead of giving a neutral overview of Jenin's significance for the major reliable sources.
As for the "just the facts, ma'am" approach suggested, I have explained why I think the suggestion was mere rhetoric. The best sources by far for the facts are the major international human-rights organizations, but Kyaa and others keep describing them, bewilderingly, as "partisan groups," and advocating an a la carte approach to their findings, which we can then supplement with press releases from genuinely partisan lobby groups. Then there's this persistent talk about "helicopters swarming angrily." Was that ever in the article, or is it a strawman? There's nothing there now about that. And yet at least one editor who invokes it as an example of emotive or dramatic rhetoric has vigorously edit-warred to keep in place a reference to defensive mines packing "ten times the blast of a suicide bomber's belt." Just the facts, ma'am – indeed.
We need the facts first; and then the significance, the controversies, and so on (including but not limited to or frontloaded by the revised casualty estimates and retracted massacre allegations). For the facts, we have first and foremost the major international human-rights organizations. For the significance, we have an ample range of reliable sources, which should include but not privilege those for whom the major story here is the precipitous allegations of a massacre. --G-Dett 19:07, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
i disagree with who you perceive as the "first and foremost" factual. JaakobouChalk Talk 20:17, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
Do you really, Jaakobou? Really truly? So who is your source for the discrediting of massacre allegations? You have seemed quite content with a lede that refers to the massacre allegations being "rejected," "disproved," etc. Who is your "first and foremost factual" source for that? Whose credibility trumps the exhaustive on-site investigations and extensive reports by Amnesty and HRW? Time Magazine?
On another note, who do you go to for information on human-rights violations in other parts of the world? You must be very skeptical when you read about human-rights violations in Saddam's Iraq, or Sierra Leone, or Rwanda, or the Balkans. Gosh, with half the stuff we know about such things having come from such dubious, discredited, partisan sources as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, it must make you wonder if any of this stuff even happened! Well at least we have the good ol' dependable ADL, from whom we know there was no Armenian genocide. Or at least there was no Armenian genocide until last weekend, when the political sands shifted and suddenly Foxman announced: "Upon reflection, the consequences of those actions were indeed tantamount to genocide". Wonderful that: "upon reflection." The ADL doesn't get tangled up with historical data, or established facts, or the documentary record, or old-fashioned notions of maintaining political and financial independence, or sending experts to investigate and prepare reports on-site, or anything of the sort. Rather, Big Chief Foxman sits and "reflects" in solitude. OK, OK, not absolute solitude, but the relative solitude of conference calls with Shimon Peres and Israeli foreign ministry officials, who then coordinate their own reflections and announcements in consultation with the Turkish president, who until now had veto power over historical truth for the ADL under Big Chief Foxman, who in turn has veto power over historical truth for some of the more exasperating editors in our midst.[31] --G-Dett 21:27, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
yes i really really do, i disagree with what you perceive as the "first and foremost" factual, i find this unrelated rant about the politics of the ADL and the turkish gov.... unrelated. JaakobouChalk Talk 09:25, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
User talk:Jaakobou - if you'd indent and thread your responses in a regular fashion, it would be easier to accept your apparent enthusiasm for the ADL, over the evidence we've just had presented that it's an entirely political organisation, in which one man makes ideological U-turns about genocide bearing no relation to evidence whatsoever. PalestineRemembered 12:29, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
warning issued, this has gone long enough. JaakobouChalk Talk 12:58, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
gimme a break. there is no support for massacre allegations, from any source. I think we need to stop arguing over labels and charged weasel words. --Steve, Sm8900 01:07, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Steve, have you read the post you're responding to? I have not suggested that there is support for massacre allegations.--G-Dett 04:11, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
So you're supportive of not presenting this as a massacre and limitting the discussion to what in the end was presented: that there was no massacre in Jenin? Kyaa the Catlord 04:54, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Limiting the discussion to the revised claims of massacre? Why on earth would we do that?
On another note, Kyaa, given that you've just edited the very sentence that falsifies sources, why didn't you fix the misrepresentation? Have you not read the sources?--G-Dett 05:07, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Removal of {{TotallyDisputed}}

link to previous related talk: [32] , [33] (note: static Sep. 3 versions before archiving) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jaakobou (talk • contribs) 16:34, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

No, Jaakobou, it doesn't work like that. The tags indicate the presence of a dispute. They don't indicate that the dispute is "valid" or "invalid" in the judgement of a heavily involved, highly partisan editor. You want a point of inaccuracy and POV? Here's one example, based on one paragraph which is roughly representative of the entire piece.

  • Palestinian militants had expected an air strike since their security forces' barracks in the Gaza Strip and West Bank had been repeatedly bombed by an Israeli military that didn't want to risk the casualties of Close Quarters Combat.[1] However in Jenin, the IDF chose not to bomb the spots of resistance using aircraft in order to minimize civilian losses,[13] even with the risk of increased losses to infantry,[16] although there was limited use of helicopters.[13][1]

Source 13 doesn't seem to exist; but I'm assuming from the name that it's supposed to be the UN report (of which HRW and Amnesty, which did actual investigations instead of summarizing press reports, were harshly critical). What does the report say on the "no aircraft to minimize casualties"? It says, "According to Israeli sources, in their incursion into the camp IDF relied primarily on infantry rather than airpower and artillery in an effort to minimize civilian casualties, but other accounts of the battle suggest that as many as 60 tanks may have been used even in the first days." What does it say about "limited use of helicopters"? It says, "IDF is reported to have used bulldozers, tank shelling and rocket firing, at times from helicopters, in populated areas.", it says "Much of the destruction appears to have occurred in the fighting as a result of the use by IDF of tanks, helicopter gunships and bulldozers.", it says, "Interviews with witnesses conducted by human rights organizations suggest that tanks, helicopters and ground troops using small arms predominated in the first two days, after which armoured bulldozers were used to demolish houses and other structures so as to widen alleys in the camp. ", it says, "The heaviest fighting reportedly occurred between 5 and 9 April, resulting in the largest death tolls on both sides. There are reports that during this period IDF increased missile strikes from helicopters", and that's all it says about helicopters (excluding Israeli and Palestinian submissions to the report.) It uses the word "limited" exactly twice - once to say that the usefulness of a report without on-the-scene investigation is "limited", and once to say that Israeli access to the camp in the aftermath of fighting was "limited". The EU submission says, "IDF systematically used bulldozers, tanks, armoured personnel carriers and infantry, also armoured helicopters. The operations took a broader scope after the death of 13 Israeli soldiers in an ambush inside the refugee camp." It never says anything about limited helicopter use, limited use of force - this is all a fairy-tale that pro-Israeli editors have cavalierly attributed to people who never said it. What does TIME say about helicopters? It has, "Cobra attack helicopters began to pound rooftop Palestinian positions." It uses the word "limited" only in reference to a previous incursion in February, never in reference to the events of April. More fairy tales.

"the IDF chose not to bomb the spots of resistance using aircraft in order to minimize civilian losses, even with the risk of increased losses to infantry" is sourced to a CNN piece, which in fact says, "Israel Defense Forces spokesmen have said that the decision to use infantry to spearhead the attack – rather than using air power and artillery – stemmed from a desire to limit civilian casualties, even at the risk of higher IDF casualties. The decision to take the crowded refugee camp – with its narrow streets and alleyways – block by block did prove costly to the Israeli forces."

So in other words, we are again taking the word of Israeli "spokesmen" as received wisdom. The source in fact says that "the decision to take the crowded refugee camp ... block by block" caused increased casualties, not any suspension of aerial bombing. The aerial bombing claim is an IDF claim which is fine attributed as such, but should absolutely not be treated as factual, WP-voice information!

Note that I haven't even begun to talk about what other sources say, source which I've repeatedly drawn from and which have been repeatedly expunged. What do Amnesty and HRW say about helicopters? What did Peter Beaumont say that he saw with his own eyes? He described "helicopters that swarmed angrily above the city's roofs, firing indiscriminately into the city's crowded refugee camp", "We could see the tanks manoeuvering and shelling ... Most shocking, however, were the Apache helicopter gunships". HRW says, "Civilian residents of the camp described days of sustained missile fire from helicopters hitting their houses...Firing was particularly indiscriminate on the morning of April 6, when missiles were launched from helicopters, catching many sleeping civilians unaware." Amnesty quotes one of their officials describing, "Houses pierced from wall to wall by tank or helicopter gun ships." They say, "Houses were intensively attacked by missiles from Apache helicopters...the fighting Palestinian residents and Palestinian and foreign journalists and others outside the camp saw hundreds of missiles being fired into the houses of the camp from Apache helicopters flying sortie after sortie. The sight of the firepower being thrown at Jenin refugee camp led those who witnessed the air raids, including military experts and the media, to believe that scores, at least, of Palestinians had been killed." HRW and Amnesty are by far the most credible sources we have; they are neutral, they are experts, they conducted on-the-scene invesigations - and we completely contradict them!

The neutrality and factual accuracy aren't really "disputed" here - they're despicable. Eleland 13:26, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

if you have a problem with this tiny snippet, why not fix the problem? i don't see how this over-sized paragraph justifies the tag. p.s. keeping it short and to the point might help you achieve your desired changes faster, assuming you want to improve the article rather than just keep the tag. JaakobouChalk Talk 13:53, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
Jaakobou, I apologize for beating a dead horse here, but I wanted to make it clear that the article is suffering from massive NPOV and factual problems; this is one example of one paragraph. The lies and distortions are laced throughout this article. Don't implicitly impugn my motives ("Assuming you want improve the article.") We've been trying to improve it for weeks; you and some others have been trenchantly opposed to such improvements. Eleland 16:58, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
indeed, We've been trying to improve it for weeks; you and some others have been trenchantly opposed to such improvements. indeed. JaakobouChalk Talk 21:35, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
please focus on the material which bothers you and make subsections to each single problem. i don't believe the tag is needed, but i'm willing to let it slip for a while longer as long as we are taking steps forward to resolve the issues. JaakobouChalk Talk 21:54, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
I have to agree with Jaakobou above. Please mention some specific points that editors can act upon. As things are now, with no specifics being mentioned, there is no reason for the disputed tag to be included in the article. -- Karl Meier 22:01, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
No, it doesn't work like that. You don't decide whether our dispute is valid, or "specific" enough to mention (wtf are you talking about, anyway? there are specifics all over the place!). The dispute exists. The tag stays. This constant tag-removal is verging on disruptive editing. Eleland 22:06, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
I don't see a whole lot of specifics above, but if they are so plentiful then why don't you just make the list that I requested, so that Jaakoobu, I and other editors can act upon them? Reading through the article and the recent reverts, the tag seems to unjustified. Another issue is that I will have to ask you to please remain WP:Civil. Cursing and accusing other editors of being disruptive is not acceptable. -- Karl Meier 22:18, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
I'm not going to be drawn into an argument about whether "wtf" is "cursing". Nor will I argue about whether removal of maintenance tags because you don't personally agree with them is "disruptive editing". I'll simply quote WP:NPOV:

:Sometimes people have edit wars over the NPOV dispute tag, or have an extended debate about whether there is a NPOV dispute or not. In general, if you find yourself having an ongoing dispute about whether a dispute exists, there's a good chance one does, and you should therefore leave the NPOV tag up until there is a consensus that it should be removed.'

This extensive, exhaustive discussion going on since early July has led nowhere, and I have no reason to believe that re-capitulating it would accomplish anything. Briefly, the article devotes vastly undue weight to IDF and allied sources, and passes their claims on without attribution as truth. It downplays and misrepresents the findings of credible international observers and of journalists. It ignores vivid and shocking descriptions by eyewitnesses, including military experts, humanitarian workers, journalists, and senior representatives of the EU, UNRWA, and others, in favour of vague, nebulous statements which are unattributed, or attributed to sources that do not say them. It relies extremely heavily on a single TIME magazine piece, to which entire paragraphs of key information is sourced - yet it ghettoizes and downplays, or worse misrepresents, the findings of Human Rights Watch and Amnesty which conducted extensive investigations. And then it devotes space for the Anti-Defamation League to kick dirt on them - as if the ADL has a sliver of credibility here!
Let me end with one fact which sums it up. There isn't a single Palestinian quote in the article which describes their suffering here. Not one. Out of all the eyewitness testimony compiled by HRW, Amnesty, the P.A. submission to the UN report - not a single one. Eleland 22:30, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
There isn't a single quote describing Israeli emotions either, since this is an encyclopaedia article. We aren't interested in helicopters "swarming angrily", just facts. If there are any facts that you think aren't being included, then by all means point them out. TewfikTalk 02:13, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
Which facts? Facts that have been fabricated? Facts that are attributed to sources that didn't say them? Facts that are actually POV opinions from involved groups? For example, I referenced the "fact" that "the IDF chose not to bomb the spots of resistance using aircraft in order to minimize civilian losses", and we've been debating the "fact" that "major human rights organizations maintained [that war crimes] had taken place on both sides". The first "fact" is an official statement offered by the IDF and passed on as "fact", the second "fact" is an original-research misreading of sources which nobody has actually shown to use "war crimes" or "grave breaches of humanitarian law" when referring to the Palestinians in this battle. Why not address any of the points made here or above, instead of posturing. Eleland 18:01, 31 August 2007 (UTC)


POV-problems are one thing, outright deception another...

Whoever keeps reinserting the following deception to the lead –

Palestinian and some international sources described the Israeli actions as indiscriminate[11][12] and raised allegations of massacre, initially reported in the international media and subsequently rejected by outside observers, and of war crimes, which major human rights organizations maintained had taken place on both sides.

– please remove it, and restore the factual and sourced account, and restore whatever references need restoring., and stop insulting the intelligence and abusing the good faith of your fellow editors. This issue has been settled beyond any reasonable doubt in the talk-page sections Jaakobou created for it. If the deception hasn't been removed by tomorrow, I'll do it, and thenceforth revert without comment any insertion of unsourced material to the lead.--G-Dett 21:38, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

I was going to apologise as I had unwittingly restored that with some other text. However an accusation of "outright deception" is a bit far - I remind you again that as frustrating as the goings-on here may at times be, that sort of tone does nothing to help the collaboration along. This is exactly the sort of atmosphere where we all need to weigh our words with utmost care. TewfikTalk 05:59, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
We do indeed need to weigh our words with the utmost care, especially in the mainspace. Incompetent and dishonest editing is the source of the frustration and the core of the trust issue, much more so than talk page tone.--G-Dett 04:41, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
I cannot tell from this who is accused of war-crimes. The phrase "Palestinian and some international sources" does not adequately describe the sources who "described the Israeli actions as indiscriminate", and this has been noted and agreed before. This edit appears to reinsert a weasel-worded version of what the ADL claimed, conflating the claim that "No massacre occured" (itself highly debatable) with claims that there were no atrocities. See objections.
Clearly, there are many other serious problems with this article, but corrections of the above would help a bit. PalestineRemembered 10:34, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Objecting to a verifiable source's direct quote? Honestly PR.... Kyaa the Catlord 10:41, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
The gist of PR's post is spot-on, Kyaa. Quotes like the ADL's strategically conflate the massacre allegations with "atrocities" more generally, in order to falsely suggest that the evidence for both the former and the latter were subsequently found wanting. This article, being a propaganda article, follows the ADL's lead; much of the edit-warring over the lead, for example, is a result of editors' efforts to deploy the same strategic conflation. PR is obviously no fool; stop patronizing him.--G-Dett 14:38, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Indeed, he is not a fool in the same world that news articles stating that the media should be writing more articles retracting the allegations of massacres shows that a massacre occured when even HRW and AI say otherwise. Kyaa the Catlord 15:14, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
I think you need to read more carefully; you've badly misunderstood him, the several clarifications by both of us notwithstanding.--G-Dett 15:26, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Intro debate - Israeli explanation

I request people stop mass reverting based on "red lines", and address the issues properly.

in an attempt to get a little consensus, i open this first section (more will follow) in regards to how the intro should be written in regards to the Israeli reasoning for the operation.

User:G-Dett has suggested the following in regards to this matter:

a) present the two competing accounts of the "context" for the battle; or b) relegate such contentious material to the "background" section where it probably belongs.

please select your preference pro A or pro B and give a reasoning. remember, this is not a popular vote and reasoning must be stated. In the chance that you have a question/opinion/thought, please state it on Talk:Battle of Jenin#AB comments.

p.s. try to keep it short and to the point. JaakobouChalk Talk 20:39, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

i'd request all the active people to participate since reverting once this issue is resolved could be considered as disruptive.

pro A

  • I totally support giving the Palestinian pretext to the battle in the intro. to be frank, i believed it was already stated that they considered the attack to be indiscriminate and raised allegations of massacre (was there another narrative i'm unaware of?) JaakobouChalk Talk 20:39, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
    • comment - "Pretext" and "context" are not even remotely the same thing. In this case "context" refers to the perceived reasons for the action. What you are describing ("indiscriminate, allegations of massacre") is not "context" but factual information about the events themselves. Conflating these two would be a serious mistake. Eleland 21:45, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
      • reply comment - my stand is based on WP:LEAD, meaning that the massacre allegations are the only reason this battle was notable. JaakobouChalk Talk 22:57, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
        • reply comment The massacre allegations are not the only reason this battle was notable. Documented Israeli war crimes was another. And there are several other reasons.--G-Dett 20:48, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
          • reply comment - if you have documentation for this, i'd expect you to bring the documentation forward rather than claim notability without sources. JaakobouChalk Talk 10:10, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

pro B

  • Even a bare minimum summary would tend to dominate the lede section, which ought to emphasize what actually happened in early April 2002, rather than perceived or proclaimed motives, objectives, etc. We ought simply to note that Jenin was one of many West Bank locales reoccupied in "Defensive Shield" at leave it at that. Issues of motive and justification often descend into "Israel said X, but Palestinians say Y, to which Israeli responded Z, which was countered by A, leading to accusations of B..." which is awkward in a main article section, but totally disastrous for readability of a lede. Eleland 21:13, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
    • comment - As long as the references aren't broken, I'm ok with removing the details from the lead as long as context is firmly established. Kyaa the Catlord 22:43, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
      • reply comment - is that your "vote" or just a comment? JaakobouChalk Talk 22:50, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Having a context doesn't really belong in the beginning of the article. I've looked at other battle and siege articles for guidance. Siege of Antwerp, Siege of Paris, Siege of Warsaw, Battle of the Bulge, as well as many other lesser known siege of -- articles. Sometimes in requests for comments, the question is not posed as pro-A or B because it tends to be divisive. Jerseycam 18:11, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
    • comment - Battle of the Bulge seems to have quite a lot of pretext/context/etc. and two out of the other 3 are very much incomplete articles. JaakobouChalk Talk 20:20, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
      • reply comment - Battle of the Bulge has a lot of detail, but I don't see pretexts, justifications, casus belli, etc.--G-Dett 20:25, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

AB comments

  • comment - we should probably mention in the background section that the wave of suicide bombings has it's pretexts in the Israeli-palestinian conflict but i don't find this notable enough within' the article to be given a bigger place on the intro than the events which actually led to the attack on jenin. note: i find that people stating the suicide attacks are the "official" reasoning for attacking jenin (in contrast to the conspiracy genocidal/sabra-shatila theories) insulting. JaakobouChalk Talk 20:39, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment - I object strenuously to any attempt to tar one side exclusively with accusations of "mass reversions". Clearly, certain "pro-Israel" editors have shown very little restraint in conducting reversions of their own, even to the extent of restoring broken English and weird phraseology - and yet they generally do not clearly indicate that their edits are reversions, which is contrary to best practice. Eleland 21:04, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
    • comment - I specifically reverted most of the changes that you objected to above. My missing one hardly warrants this reply, especially given my attempts to ensure that your past neutral edits were preserved along with any changes I made. TewfikTalk 21:19, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
    • reply - i agree to some extent, but disagree as a whole considering the way things have been done; but mostly i disagree with the accusative polemics which will not help us move forward. regadless, i request you perhaps shorten your comment to my choice of pro A and also consider moving it to this AB comments section. (i took the liberty to move a portion of your comment eleland, i hope you don't take offense by this) i am trying to stop the personal interactions and make everyone's opinions and ideas written down in an easy to follow way rather than the current debate mess we have. p.s. please let's focus not on polemics, but on just discussing the issues. JaakobouChalk Talk 21:22, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
  • comment - Your proposed "A" position would require us to say something like "Israel conducted what it termed a large-scale counter-terrorist operation after 100 Israelis were killed in a wave of suicide bombings, Palestinians called it a collective punishment designed to demoralize them and encourage their submission to Israeli military occupation ongoing since 1967" (I'm conjecturing on the Palestinian side, in the actual article we'd have to find proper sources.) Eleland 21:45, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
  • questions to Jerseycam - (1) what is your opinion about WP:LEAD? (2) was that note a vote for B or just commentary?
    • reply - Regarding your question 1 to me, WP:LEAD is a style guideline. Regarding question 2, I'll try to put it in a diplomatic way. We all make commentary unless we simply write "I am for B" or "I am for A". Commentary is one of the purposes of the talk page. The fact that my commentary supports B and that it is under the B column would be factors that would allow a reasonable person reading the talk page to assume that I am voting for B. Jerseycam 07:50, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikiquette alert

I have reported this "stressful situation" in order "to seek perspective, advice, informal mediation, or a referral to a more appropriate forum." See the relevant section.

I realize I've posted a rather long summary, and that many editors will want to jump in with at least as much information. I suggest that you hold off for now and just post it here, or to your own talk page, I don't want the Wikiquette people to get swamped. I strongly suspect this issue is heading towards formal mediation; your extensive submissions will be very welcome there. Eleland 13:43, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

i'm happy to see you've taken a civilized approach to this. JaakobouChalk Talk 13:55, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
Well done, User:Eleland. There is a ridiculous amount of good material been edit-warred out of this article (I've listed 10 or so items somewhere), while very, very poor material has been shoveled in. The whole layout is wrong, with "Body Count Estimations" as a complete section with sub-section "Post-fighting investigations" - but it's been edit-warred back in like that.
Here's something I've never shared with you before - the lead we're using is fundamentally wrong. It contains "context" of a form that's never normally included. I checked the following: Siege of Antwerp, Siege of Florence (1529-1530), Siege of Gaeta (2 of them), Battle of Jerusalem (1917), Siege of Jerusalem (1187), Siege of Jerusalem (1099), Siege of Jerusalem (637), Siege of Jerusalem (70), First Siege of Krujë, Second Siege of Krujë, Third Siege of Krujë, Fourth Siege of Krujë, Siege of Kirrha, Siege of Paris, Siege of Rhodes (1480), Siege of Rhodes (1522), Battle of Seringapatam, Battle of Sevastopol, Siege of Sevastopol (1854-1855) and Siege of Warsaw. There are only two places I've found "context" of the form this article has, one is Siege of Jerusalem (1948) (I wonder why that should be?). The other is the historical Siege of Rhodes - perhaps because the only accounts we have are used as "texts" in language teaching, so this POV "context" is all we've really got. PalestineRemembered 17:06, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
PS - there was a previous attempt to put part of this matter to the community (over the CAMERA reference). That discussion was immediately overwhelmed by people from the discussion here, led by one of the very most experienced editors of all, who should most certainly have known better. I trust that will not happen again. PalestineRemembered 17:13, 30 August 2007 (UTC)